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f.4«rattiitltf(ti!itcr: 


LL.  D. 

Muter  of  Arti,  C«lombU  Collcfa,  of  Stw  York,  1871— Hon.  Mem.  Clareodoii  HUl.  Soc„  Kdlnbonh.  SeolUnd  ;  of  the  Sew  BroMwIck 

HIaC  8oe.,  St.  John,  Canada;  of  the  Riit.  Soe.  of  MlnoowU.  MooUna,  New  Jerwjr.  ke.;  Life  Mem.  Royal  IlUt.  Sjo.  of 

Oraat  Britain.  London,  Kng.;  Mem.  MaatiehappiJ  Xaderlanitiche.  I^ettorkunde,  Lejden.  Ilolland.  ke.,  ke.— Colonel 

X.  T.  S.  I  ,  ISIC.  aaitened  for  "wuriiorUm*  amducC  to  command  of  lid  Reglmenul  Dittrict,  M.  F.  S.  N.  T^ 

IMS,  Brigadier  General  for*tii>portan<  Mn>ie«"rflr«t  appointment— In  N.Y.  Sute — to  that  rank,  hUbcr* 

to  •toeUre],  lUl.  M.  P.  S.  S.  T.— Adjutant  General.  3  N.  T  ,  lU:^ Breret  MaJor.Gcncral, 

8.  S.  T.,  for  "mtritoriouM  terrice*"  \>j  'Special  Act"  or  "ConcurTent  RcaoluUon," 

X.  T.Sute  Legislature.  April.  18W  (Bnt  and  only  General  offl  er  rcc«irinf 

tnch  an  honor  (the  higheit)  from  S.  X    T.,  and  the  only  oOlcer 

MtM  brrretlad  (Major.General)  In  the  United  flute*.] 

AUTHOR    OF 

Rp.poRTS— ist.  On  the  Organizations  of  the  National  Guards  and  Municipal  Military  Institutions  of 
Europe,  and  the  Artillery  and  Arms  best  adapted  to  the  State  Service,  1852.  (Reprinted  by  order 
of  the  N.  Y.  State  Legislature,  Senate  Documents,  No.  74,  March  26,  1853.)  2d.  Organizations  of 
the  English  and  Swiss  Militia,  the  French,  Swiss,  and  Prussian  Fire  Departments.  Suggestions 
for  the  Organization  of  the  N.  Y.  Militia,  &c.    1853. 

Life  of  (the  Swedish  Field  Marshal)  Leonard  Torstenson  (rewarded  with  three  splendid  Silver  Medals, 
&c.,  by  H.  R.  M.  Oscar  L,  King  of  Sweden).  1855.— Thirty  Years  War,  and  Military  Services  of 
Field-Marshal  Generalissimo  Leonard  Torstcmson  (Series),  N.  Y.  Weekly  Mail,  1873 '.  A  Hero  of  the 
XVn.  Century  (Torstenson).— The  Volunteer,  Weekly  Mag.,  Vol.  L,No.  L,  1869.— The  Career  of  the 
celebrated  Condottiere  Fra  Morcale,  Weekly  Mail,  1873.— Frederic  the  Great.  (Series.)  Weekly  Mail, 
1873. — Eulogy  of  Torstenson,  ^to.,  1872. 

The  Dutch  at  the  North  Pole,  and  the  Dutch  in  Maine.     1857. 

Appendix  to  the  Dutch  at  the  North  Pole,  &c.     1858. 

Ho,  for  the  North  Pole  !    i860.—"  Littell's  Living  Age."— The  Dutch  Battle  of  the  Baltic.     1858. 

The  Invincible  Armada.  (Series.)  18C0. — Examples  of  Intrepidity,  as  illustrated  by  the  Exploits  and 
Deaths  of  the  Dutch  Admirals.     (Scries.)     1860-1.     Military  Gazette. 

Gems  from  Dutch  History.    (Series.)     1855.— A  Tale  of  Leipsic,  Peabody's  Parlor  Mag.,  183a. 

Carausius,  the  Dutch  Augustus,  and  Emperor  of  Britain  and  the  Menapii.     1858. 

The  Ancient,  Medizval  and  Modem  Nctherlanders.     1859. 

Address  to  the  Officers  of  the  New  York  Sute  Troops.     1858. 

Life  of  Lieut. -Gen.  (famous  "Dutch  Vauban" — styled  the  "Prince  of  Engineers")  Menno,  Baron 
Cohom.     ( Series.)     i860.— Military  Lessons.     ( Series.)     1861-3.— Winter  Campaigns.     1862. 

Practical  Strategy,  as  illustrated  by  the  Life  and  Achievements  of  a  Master  of  the  Art,  the  Austrian 
Field-Marshal,  Traun.  1863. — Personal  and  Military  History  of  Major-General  Philip  Keamy, 
512  pp.,  8vo.  1869. — Secession  in  Switzerland  and  the  United  States  compared  ;  being  the  Annual 
Address,  delivered  20th  October,  1863,  before  the  Vermont  State  Historical  Society,  in  the  Hall  of 
Representatives,  Capitol,  Montpelier.     1864. 

Incidents  connected  with  the  War  in  Italy.     (Series.)     1859. 

Mortality  among  Generals.  (Series.)  1861. — The  Battle  of  King'*  Mountain.  (Series.)  1861-2,  1880. 
Oriskany,  1878 — Monmouth,  1878— Rhode  Island,  1878. 

Facts  or  Ideas  Indispensable  to  the  Comprehension  of  War;  Notions  on  Strategy  and  Tactics.  (5>eries.)  t86i- 
2.  Eclaireur,  Military  Journal.  (Edited.)  1854-8.- In  Memoriam.  (Edited.)  ist,  1857  ;  2d,  i86a. 
The  Bible  in  Prison.     1853. — A  Discourse  on  the  Tendency  of  High  Church  Doctrines.     1855. 

A  Night  with  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden.     A  Nice  Young  Man.     Parlor  Dramas.     1860-1. 

Aculco,  Oriskany,  and  Miscellaneous  Poems,     i860. 

Genealogical  References  of  Old  Colonial  Families,  &c.     1851. 

Biographical  Notices  of  the  de  Peyster  Family,  in  connection  with  the  Colonial  History  of  New  York. 
1861. — Biographies  of  the  Watts,  de  Peytter,  Reade,  and  Leake  Families,  in  connection  with 
Trinity  Churchyard.  1862.— Military  (1776-1779)  Transactions  of  Major,  afterwards  Colonel  Sth  or 
King's  Foot,  B.  A.,  Arent  Schuyler  de  Peyster  and  Narrative  of  the  Maritime  Discoveries  of  hi* 
namesake  and  nephew,  Capt.  Arent  Schuyler  de  Peyster,  N.  Y.,  1870. — Local  Memorials  relating  to 
the  de  Peyster  and  Watts  and  affiliated  families.  1881.— In  Memoriam,  Frederic  de  Peyster,  Esq., 
LL.D.,  Prest.  N.  Y.  Historical  fwriety,  St.  Nicholas  Society,  St.  Nicholas  Club,  Ac,  Ac.     1882. 


•  ••    -• 


.       .     .      •    • 

•       •    •  •  * 


Was  THE  Shakespeare,  after  all,  a  Myth? 

"No  Royal  Road  to  Learni.m;. " 

I  have  long  believed  that  Shakespeare,  according  to  the  world's  accepta- 
tion of  the  "  Divine  William,"  is  a  myth— a  phantasm— and  that,  possessing  a 
bright  mind,  he  simply  absorbed,  refined  down  and  finished  the  coarser 
labors  of  other  men.  "There  is  no  royal  road  to  learning."  A  man  may  be 
a  genius,  gifted  with  marvellous  ability,  wlio  can  apply  what  he  has  learned 
to  greater  advantage  than  his  contempories,  but  still  is  ignorant  of  branches 
which  cannot  be  acquired  without  study  or  exceptional  opjjortunities.  Now, 
the  worshippers  of  Shakespeare  claim  that  he  understood  classical  lore,  law, 
theology,  medicine,  art,  science ;  in  fact,  foresaw  discoveries  which  after- 
wards aroused  the  wonder  of  the  world  ;  one,  for  exam])le,  the  circulation 
of  the  blood,  which  is  credited  to  Harvey  in  1619,  after  the  death  of  tlie 

f)oet.  Tiie  plays  of  Shakespeare  show  that  wlioever  wrote  them  was  very 
earned  in  many  and  varied  directions.  The  str<»lling  player  and  hard- 
worked  manager  had  no  chance  whatever  to  attain  proficiency  or  even  a 
smattering  of  the  vast  lore  displayed  in  the  writings  attributed  to  him. 
Though  it  may  not  be  proven  tiiat  "  Racon  was  Shakespeare,"  there  is 
enough  evidence  adduced  to  sliow  that  the  Shakespeare  of  a  crowd  of  wor- 
shippers like  Hudson  and  Grant  White,  was  not  the  Shakespeare  who  lived 
and  played,  and  there  is  much  more  likelihood,  judging  a  priori,  that 
Shakespeare  was  rather  only  an  able  editor,  adapter,  or  compiler.  To  accept 
the  Shakespeare  of  the  Shakespearians  is  like  faith  without  reason. 

In  my  first  monagraph  of  two  pages  was  worked  out,  printed 
many  years  ago.  the  results  arrived  at  in  different  ways  by  divers 
writers  and  before  any  of  the  works  founded  on  the  Baconian 
theory  had  seen  thch'ght.  The  revolt  of  mind  or  common  sense 
to  dethrone  the  impossible  Shakespeare,  had  not  as  yet  organized 
and  sounded  the  assault  upon  a  citadel  of  error,  before  which, 
as  yet,  only  a  few  malcontents  had  appeared  and  threatened  the 
war  for  which  matured  reflection  was  marshalling  forces  for  a 
complete  investment  and  overthrow.  Hart's  declaration  of 
hostilities,  in  1848,  is  almost  unknown.  It  was  an  episode  in- 
serted in  a  work  entirely  foreign  to  such  a  subject,  commencing 
with  the  journal  of  a  sea-voyage  and  ending  with  a  dictionary  of 
nautical  terms.   Very  few  had  heard  of  it  or  knew  of  its  existence. 


M195475 


It  is  not  even  referred  to  in  later  works  upon  the  subject. 
Like  a  faint  meteor  it  had  shone  upon  the  ordinary  sky  and  was- 
lost  in  the  superior  light  of  the  permanent  constellations  ;  was 
regarded  as  something  unworthy  the  consideration  of  the  acut- 
est  observer  of  the  golden  patines  alluded  to  by  Lorenzo  in  one 
of  the  greatest  dramas  credited  to  a  genius  which  did  not  con- 
cieve  them  ;  was  not  a  sufficient  genius  for  such  conceptions. 
If  any  one  had  reflected  upon  the  Book  of  bot)ks  he  would  have 
found  therein  a  question  which  in  itself  dissipates  the  myth  of 
Shakespeare.  "How  knoweth  this  man  letters,  having  never 
learned. "  This  truth  was  ignored  by  the  unreflecting  in  the  case 
of  the  play-actor,  and  manager,  transmuted  into  an  unsurpassed 
and  unsurpassable  genius  by  blind  imagination  and  credulity, 
and  finally  idolatry.  The  iron  rule  "There  is  no  royal  road  to 
learning "  has  never  had  an  exception.  The  Warwickshire 
butcher-boy,  adventurer  and  thrifty  money-getter,  could  not — 
even  with  the  transcendent  gift  of  inventive  perspicacity — have 
mastered  the  knowledge,  art,  science,  philosophy  and  language 
displayed  in  his  poetry  and  plays.  Such  a  genius  would  be 
more  than  a  miracle,  because  human  after  all, — without  a 
transcendent  miracle  greater  than  any  which  the  world  has  yet 
witnessed,  and  without  the  personal  exertion  of  divine  powers 
by  divinity  a  sheer  impossibility. 

J.  W.  DE  P. 

"  *0h,  Shakespeare — Immortal  bard — Mighty  genius — Swan 
of  Avon — thou  unapproachable !  Are  there  no  more  fish,  no 
more  krakens  in  that  wondrous  sea  from  which  thou  wert  taken  ^ 
Shall  there  be  no  more  cakes  and  ale.'  *  [as  poor  Artemus 
Ward  said,  "X.  B.  This  is  Sarkassum/  "] 

How  prone  the  English  people  are  to  kill  off  their  great 
men  !  They  first  raise  them  up  to  the  loftiest  pinnacle  of  fame, 
and  then,  like  the  eagle  with  the  tortoise,  or  the  monkey  which 
mounts  the  highest  tree  with  his  cocoa-nut,  they  dash  their 
victims  "all  to  pieces"  upon  the  rocks  below.  Thus,  also,  they 
play  the  game  of  nine-pins  with  all  their  great  statesmen.  They 
set  them  up,  ay,  "set  them  up,  my  boy!"  for  the  pleasure  of 
knocking  them  down.  And  then,  again,  they  drink  to  the  full, 
at  the  Castalian  fount  and  the  inclination  is  irresistible  to- 
demolish  the  vessel  that  has  served  them  : 

*•  Sweet  the  pleasure 
Afler  drinking — to  break  the  glasses !  " 

>  ' ~ 

*  This  and  what  follows  froMi  -^  Page  2,  lo  -^-^  Page  24,  is  quoted  with 
notes  by  J.  \V.  de  P.  from  "The  ||  Romance  of  Yachting;  |{  Voyage  the 
First."  II  By  Joseph  C.  Hart,  ||  Author  of '«  Miriam  Coffin  "  &c.,  ||  NewYork,|| 
Harper  and  Brothers,  Publishers,  ||  82  Clifll' Street,  ||  1848.     Pages  209  to  243, 


It  is  thus  they  have  raised  up  Shakespeare ;  and  now  they 
are  demolishing  him,  without  remorse. 

Was  he  not  in  our  own  time,  the  "unapproachable,"'  the 
"immortal  bard,"  the  "not  for  a  day  but  for  all  time,"  the 
glorious,"  the  "  Sivee/  Swan  of  Avon,"  the  "poet  of  true  genius 
and  invention,  "the  "modest,"  the  "heaven-born,"  the  "creator," 
the  "poet  of  all  climes,"  the  bard  who  "stole  the  Promethean 
fire,"  "the  glass  of  fashion  and  the  mould  of  form,"  the  "man 
on  whom  each  god  did  seem  to  set  his  seal,"  in  short  the  "top- 
sawyer  "  of  all  the  poetical  geniuses  of  all  ages  ?  Ay,  all  this 
and  much  more.  But  where  is  he  now  ?  Alas  ! — where .-'  How 
the  ghosts  of  old  authors  would  pitch  into  him,  among  the 
infernal,  if  Dante  had  to  do  with  him  ! 

After  "the  bard  "  had  been  dead  for  one  hundred  years  and 
utterly  forgotten,  a  player  and  a  writer  of  the  succeeding  century, 
turning  over  the  old  lumber  of  a  theatrical  "property  room," 
find  bushels  of  neglected  plays  and  the  idea  of  a  "speculation  " 
occurs  to  them.  They  dig  at  hazard  and  promiscuously  and 
disentomb  the  literary  remains  of  many  a  "wit"  of  a  former 
century,  educated  men,  men  of  mind,  graduates  of  Universities, 
yet  starving  at  the  door  of  some  theatre,  while  their  plays  are  in 
the  hands  of  an  ignorant  and  scurvy  manager,  awaiting  his 
awful  tiat.  They  die  in  poverty  and  some  of  absolute  starvation. 
Still  their  plays,  to  the  amount  of  hundreds,  remain  in  the  hands 
of  the  manager,  andbecome  in  some  way  or  other  his  "property." 
A  '^^ factotum"  is  kept  to  revise,  to  strike  out,  to  refit,  revamp,  inter- 
polate, disfigure,  to  do  anything  to  please  the  vulgar  and  vicious 
taste  of  the  multitude.  No  play  will  succeed  without  it  is  well 
peppered  with  vulgarity  and  obscenity.  The  "property-room" 
becomes  lumbefed  to  repletion  with  the  efforts  of  genius.  It 
was  the  fashion  of  the  day  for  all  literary  men  to  write  for  the 
theatre.  There  was  no  other  way  to  get  their  productions 
before  the  world.  In  the  process  of  time,  the  brains  of  the 
"  factotum  '  teeming  with  smut  and  overflowing  all  the  while 
with  prurient  obscenity,  the  theatre  becomes  indicted  for  a 
nuisance,  or  it  is  sought  to  be  "avoided,  "  by  the  magistrate  for 
its  evil  and  immoral  tendency.  The  managers  are  forced  to 
retire;  and,  one,  who  ^'owns  all  the  properties,"  leaves  the 
hundreds  of  original  or  interpolated  plays  to  the  usual  fate  of 
garret  lumber,  some  with  the  supposed  mark  of  his  "genius" 
upon  them.  They  are  useless  to  him,  for  he  is  a  player  and  a 
manager  no  longer.  A  hundred  years  pass,  and  they  and  their 
reputed  "  oivner"  are  forgotten  and  so  are  the  poets  who  wrote 
and  starved  upon  them. 

Then  comes  the  resurrection — "o«  speculation."  Bettertox, 
the  player,    and   Rowe,    the  writer,  make   a   selection   from  a 


promiscuous  heap  of  plays  found  in  a  garret,  nameless  as  to 
authorship.  "  1  want  a  hero  !  "  said  Byrox,  when  he  commenced 
a  certain  poem  : 

[  I  want  a  hero  :  an  uncommon  want 

When  every  year  and  month  sends  forth  a  new  one, 
Till  after  cloying  tlie  j^azettes  with  cant 

The  age  discovei-s  he  is  not  the  true  one  ; 
Of  such  as  these  I  do  not  care  to  vaunt, — 

Don  yuan,  Canlo  /,  Stanza  /.] 

"I  want  an  author  for  this  selection  of  plays  ! ''  said  Rowe. 

'.'  I  have  it,"  said  Betterton  "call  them  Shakespeare's  ;"  and 
Rowe,  the  Commentator,  commenced  to  puff  them  as  "the 
Bard's,'  ?L\\dio  write  a  history  of  his  hero  in  -which  there  was 
scarcely  a  word  of  truth  that  had  the  foinidation  to  rest  upon. 

This  is  about  tJie  sum  and  substance  of  the  manner  of  setting  up 
Shakespeare  :  and  the  manner  of  pullin«^  him  down,  may  be 
gathered  from  the  succeeding  commentators — not  one  of  whom, 
perhaps,  dreamed  of  such  a  possibility  while  he  was  trying  to 
immortalize  his  idol.  But  each  one,  as  they  succeeded  one 
another,  thought  it  necessary  to  outdo  his  predecessor  in  learning 
and  research,  and  developed  some  startling  antiquarian  fact, 
which,  by  accumulation,  worked  the  light  of  truth  (?)  out  of 
darkness;  until,  one  after  the  other  the  leaves  of  the  chaplet 
woven  for  Shakespeare  "the  immortal,"  fall,  withered,  to  the 
ground  ;  his  monument,  high  as  huge  Olympus,  crumbles  into 
dust,    and  his  apotheosis  vanishes  into  thin  air. 

Alas,  Shakespeare!  Lethe  is  upon  thee  !  but  if  it  drown  thee, 
it  will  give  up  and  work  the  resurrection  of  better  men  and  more 
worthy,  'i'hou  hast  had  thy  century  ;  they  are  about  having  theirs. 
' '  A  singular  and  unaccountable  mystery, "  says  Rees,  ' '  is  attached  to 
Shakespeare's  private  life  ;  and,  by  some  strange  fatality,  almost 
every  document  concerning  him  has  either  been  destroyed  or 
still  remains  in  obscurity.  "The  first  jniblished  Memoir  of  him 
was  drawn  up  by  Nicholas  Rowe  in  1709,  nearly  one  hundred 
years  after  the  decease  of  tlie  poet,  and  the  materials  for  this,  were 
furnished  by  Beitertox  the  player.  And  it  is  not  a  little  remark- 
able, that  Jonson  seems- to  have  maintained  a  higher  place  in  the 
estimation  of  the  public  in  general,  than  our  j^oet  (Shakespeare), 
for  more  than  a  century  after  the  death  of  the  latter.  Within 
that  period  Jonsons  works  are  said  to  have  passed  through 
several  editions  and  to  have  been  read  with  avidity,  while 
Shakespeare's  [works  attributed  to  him]  were  comparatively 
neglected  till  the  time  of  Rowf.  "  At  the  time  of  his  becoming 
in  some  degree  a  public  character,  we  naturally  expected  to 
find  many  anecdotes  recorded  of  his  literary  history :  but, 
strange  to  say,  the  same  destitution  o/"authkntic  incidenh  marks 

EVERY  stage  o/'HIS  LIFE. 


''Even  the  date  at  which  his  first  play  appeared  is  unknown; 
and  the  greatest  uncertainty  prevails  in  respect  to  the  chrono- 
logical order  in  which  the  whole  series  were  written,  exhibited, 
or  published." 

Shakspkare  was  born  on  the  23d  of  April,  1564,  and  died  on 
the  23d  ot  April,  1616.  His  age  was  therefore  52  years  at  the 
time  of  his  death.  In  1589,  he  had  been  some  time,  it  is  sup- 
posed, about  four  years  in  London. 

In  the  latter  year  he  was  one  of  the  16  shareholders  in  the 
^'Black-friars"  Theatre,  his  name  being  the  12th  on  the  list. 
In  1603,  his  name  appears  among  others  in  a  license  of  James  I., 
to  perform  not  merely  in  London  but  in  any  part  of  the  Kingdom, 
"These  actors,"  says  a  commentator,  "rendered  themselves 
justly  obnoxious  to  the  citizens  of  London  by  their  satirical,  we 
might  truly  say,  \hQ\x licentious  representations."  "The  wisdom 
of  men  and  the  fidelity  of  women,"  were  openly  antl  wantonly 
attacked  on  the  stage."  "A  complaint  was  formally  made  to  the 
Royal  Council ''  accordingly.  Instead  of  abating  the  nuisance,  at 
once,  a  petition  is  received  from  managers  and  entertained  by 
the  authorities  having  charge  of  the  complaint.  Compensation 
for  the  establishment  threatened  with  demolition,  and  for  its 
"properties"  is  prayed  for  with  earnestness,  and  a  negotiation 
ensued,  in  the  course  of  which  the  following  fact  appears  : 

In  an  estimate  "  for  avoiding  the  play-house  in  the  precinct 
of  the  Black-friars,"  or  abating  it  as  a  nuisance,  the  following 
item  occurs : 

''Item.  W.  Shakespp:are  asketh  for  the  'wardrobe  and 
properties  of  the  same  play-house  /"soo,  and  for  his  four  shares 
the  same  as  his  fellows,  Burbidge  and  Fletcher,  viz.  ^"933  6s. 
8d.— /1433.  6s.,  Sd." 

Heminges  and  Coxdei.l  had  each  two  shares  ;  Joseph  Taylor 
one  share  and  a  half;  Lowing  one  share  and  a  half;  and  "four 
more  players  with  one-half  share  to  each  of  them." — Total  20 
shares.  "Moreover  the  hired  men  of  the  companie  demaund 
some  recompense  for  the  great  losse,  and  the  widovvs  and 
orphanes  of  playeres,  who  are  paide  by  the  shares,  at  divers 
rates  and  proportions,  so  as  in  the  whole  it  will  coste  the  Lo. 
Mayor  and  the  citizens  at  least  /"yooo.  " 

From  this  document  the  material  fact  is  obtained,  that 
Shakespeare  was  the  owner  of  all  the  "properties  ''  of  the  theatre, 
which  includes  the  plays  possessed  by  the  establishment.  They 
necessarily  have  been  very  numerous,  as  will  be  made  manifest 
by  what  shortly  follows. 

"Of  Shakespeare's  youth  we  know  nothing,'  says  one 
commentator.  ' '  Of  Shakespeare's  last  years  we  know  absolutely 
nothing,"  says  another  "The  whole,  however,"'  says  Alexander 


Chalmers,  commenting  upon  Rowe,  Malone  and  Steeven's 
labored  attempts  to  follow  Shakespeare  in  his  career,  "is  unsatis- 
factory. Shakespeare  in  his  private  character,  in  his  friendship, 
in  his  amusements,  in  his  closet,  in  his  family,  is  no  where 
be/ore  tis. " 

Yet,  notwithstanding  all  this  mystery,  and  the  absence  of 
any  positive  information,  learned  and  voluminous  commentators 
and  biographers,  in  great  numbers,  have  been  led  to  suppose 
and  asserl  a  thousand  things  in  regard  to  Shakespeare's  history, 
pursuits  and  attainments,  which  cannot  he  suhiantiated by  a  particle 
of  proof .  Among  these  is  the  authorship  of  the  plays  grouped 
under  his  name,  which  they  assume  as  his  for  a  certainty  and 
beyond  dispute.  This  egregious  folly  is  beginning  to  react 
upon  those  who  have  been  engaged  in  it,  and  some  of  them 
are  placed  in  a  very  ridiculous  position — especially  Pope,  the 
poet,  who,  on  the  score  of  the  supposed  great  learning  of 
Shakespeare,  has  contributed  not  a  little  to  the  delusion  concern- 
ing him. 

A  writer  in  Lardner's  Cabinet  Cyclopaedia  undertakes  to  give 
us  the  history  of  his  family  ;  from  which  I  gather  that  John 
Shakespeare,  the  father  of  William,  was  very  poor  and  very 
illiterate,  notwithstanding  what  the  ambitious  commentators 
may  say  to  the  contrary.  So  says  Lardner,  and  he  proves  it 
beyond  dispute.  The  coat-of-anns  and  the  heraldry  obtained  for 
the  family,  afterwards,  was  procured  by  fraud :  and  was  pro- 
nounced discreditable  to  "the  bard"  who  had  a  hand  in  it. 
But  the  poverty  of  the  family  is  nothing  in  this  case,  except  to 
show  that  William  Shakespeare  must  necessarily  have  been  an 
uneducated  boy.  He  grew  up  in  ignorance  and  viciousness, 
and  became  a  common  poacher — and  the  latter  title,  in  literary 
matters,  he  carried  to  his  grave.  He  was  not  the  mate  of  the 
literary  characters  of  the  day,  and  no  one  knew  it  better  than 
himself.  //  is  a  fraud  upon  the  world  to  thrust  his  surreptitious 
fame  upon  us.  He  had  none  that  was  worthy  of  being  trans- 
mitted. The  inquiry  will  be,  'icho  ivere  the  able  hterary  men 
7vho  ivrote  the  dramas  imputed  to  liitnp  The  plays  themselves,  or 
rather  a  small  portion  of  them,  will  live  as  long  as  English 
literature  is  regarded  worth  pursuit.  The  authorship  of  the 
plays  is  no  otherwise  material  to  us,  than  as  a  matter  of  curiosity 
and  to  enable  us  to  render  exact  justice  ;  but  they  shoutd  not  be 
assigned  to  Shakespeare  alone,  if  at  all.  From  the  Cabinet 
Cyclopa'dia  already  referred  to,  conducted  by  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Lardner,  assisted  by  eminent  IJterary  and  Scientific  men,  Vol. 
n,  London  edition,  1837,  we  may  gather  many  particulars 
concerning  this  subject  which  I  [Joseph  C.  Hart]  have  condensed 
below. 


The  writer  commences  by  observing  that  our  ancient 
Drama  is,  indeed,  a  rich  mine  ;  but  the  dross  outweights  the  ore 
in  the  proportion  of  at  least  a  thousand  to  one.  A  person  may 
dig  long  days  before  he  discovers  anything  worth  the  trouble 
■of  picking  up.  Of  the  stage  and  dramatic  writers  immediately 
preceding  the  appearance  of  Shakespeare,  and  cotemporaneously 
with  him,  the  writer  observes  : — The  custom,  indeed,  of  later 
dramatists — Shakespeare  among  the  rest — was  to  adopt  old 
pieces  as  the  bases  of  their  labors,  to  add  or  curtail,  to  condense 
or  expand,  as  might  seem  best  suited  to  the  time.  The  tragedy 
of  "Taucred  and  Gismund,"  which  was  exhibited  ( 1568)  before 
Elizabeth,  at  the  Inner  Temple,  was  the  first  play  in  our 
language  founded  on  an  Italian  original  : — a  source  soon  to 
become  fruitful  enough.  It  was  taken  from  one  of  the 
Boccaccio  novels,  and  was  the  composition  of  fri^e  different 
persons.  Another  play,  ^^  The  Mis/ortunes  0/  Arthur,"  was 
written  by  Thomas  Hughes,  and  seven  others  persons,  one  of 
whom  was  Lord  Bacox.  The  ''Yorkshire  Tragedy,''  some 
critics  have  not  hesitated  to  ascribe  to  Shakespeare,  and  also 
many  others  which  he  probably  never  heard  of  even  by  name. 
Two  plays,  notoriously  not  his,  were  published  with  his  name  on 
Jhe  title  page  in  his  lifetime,  and  no  effort  appears  to  have  been 
made  on  his  part  to  set  the  matter  right.  It  is  evident  that  the 
intellectual  activity,  so  conspicuous  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  has  never  been  surpassed.  We  ( the  writer 
continues )  have  already  alluded  to  fi/ty-t-ivo  pieces,  of  which 
no  vestige  now  remains,  unless  the  substance  of  them  lives  in 
more  recent  productions  :  and  these  arose  and  fell  in  twelve 
years  viz. :  from  1 568  to  1 580.  That  the  later  years  were  not  less 
prolitic,  may  be  proved  by  the  instances  of  Anthony  Ml'ndav, 
Henry  Chettle,  Robert  Greene,  Christopher  Marlowe,  George 
Peele,  and  others,  wrote  innumerable  dramas,  though  most 
-of  them  have  not  come  down  to  our  days. 

But  the  most  striking  illustration  of  this  subject  is  afforded 
by  the  fact  that  from  1591  to  1597,  one  hundred  and  ten  new 
pieces  were  performed,  and  that  from  1597  to  1603,  one  hundred 
and  sixty  more  were  added  to  the  list.  This  places  at  least  270 
manuscript  plays  in  the  absolute  possession  of  the  theatre  at  the 
time  Shakespeare  was  one  of  its  managers,  and  the  ozvner  of  its 
"■properties." 

We  have  now  arrived  (says  the  writer)  at  Shakespeare's 
dramatic  contemporaries — men  who  began  to  write  before  he  did, 
who  not  only  lived  at  the  same  time,  but  divided  with  him  the 
attention  of  the  play-going  world. 

Robert  Greene  is  mentioned,  who,  at  one  time,  was  one  of 
ihe  Queen's  chaplains,  and  had  taken  the  Master's  degree  at  a 


8 

University.  It  was  sufficient  for  the  world  to  know  that  he  was 
a  popular  writer.  In  a  letter  which  Greene  wrote  in  his  last 
illness,  in  fact  on  his  death-bed,  to  his  boon-companions  and 
brother  play-writers,  or  dramatists,  as  they  were  called,  Marlowe, 
Lodge,  and  Peele,  appears  the  first  authentic  information  we 
have  of  Shakespeare's  literary  thievery.  The  youthful  propen- 
sity for  stealing  deer  and  game,  which  drove  him  from  Stratford, 
seems  to  have  remained  in  the  bone  and  ripened  into  a  con- 
lirmed  habit.  "To  those  gentlemen,'  the  letter  of  the  dying 
Greene  begins,  "his  quondam  acquaintance,  that  spend  their  wit 
in  making  plays,  Robert  Greene  wishes  a  better  exercise. 
Wonder  not  (for  with  thee  will  I  first  begin),  thou  famous 
"gracer  of  tragedies,  '  etc.  This  allusion  is  to  Marlowe,  "with 
thee,''  continues  Greene.  "I  join  yo\xr\g  Juvefia I  (Lodge),  that 
biting  satirist,  that  lastly  with  me  together  writ  a  comedy. 
Might  I  advise  thee,''  etc.  The  letter  then  proceeds,  "And  thou 
no  less  deserving  than  the  other  two  (Peele),  in  some  things 
rarer,  in  nothing  inferior,  driven  (like  myself)  to  extreme  shifts," 
etc.  —  "Base  minded  men,  all  three  of  you,  if  by  my  misery  ye 
be  not  warned  :  for  unto  none  of  you,  like  me,  sought  those 
burs  to  cleave — those  puppets  I  mean,  that  speak  from  our 
mouths,  those  antics  garnished  in  our  colors.  Is  it  not  strange 
that  I,  to  whom  they  all  have  been  beholding,  shall  be  left  of 
them  at  once  forsaken?  Yes,  trust  them  not;  for  there  is  an 
upstart  croiv,  beautified  rvitJi  our  feathers,  that  M'ith  his  tiger's 
heart  wrapped  in  a  player  s  hide,  supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to 
bombast  out  a  blank  verse  as  the  best  of  you !  And,  being  an 
absolute  John  Factotum,  is,  in  his  own  conceit,  the  only  Shake- 
scene  in  a  countr}-.  Oh  that  I  might  entreat  your  rare  wits  to  be 
employed  in  more  profitable  courses :  and  let  these  apes 
imitate  your  past  excellence,  and  never  more  acquaint  them 
with  your  admired  inventions."  By  the  "upstart  crow,  beau- 
tified with  our  feathers,"  and  "he  is,  in  his  own  conceit,  the 
only  Shake-scene  in  a  country,''  a  Mr.  Tyrwhitt  thinks  (and 
the  facts  prove  it)  Shakespeare  is  meant. 

The  commentator  then  proceeds:  "But  in  what  manner, 
the  inquisitive  reader  may  inquire,  was  Shakespeare  indebted 
to  Greene  and  his  dramatic  friends.-*  To  understand  the  subject 
more  clearly,  we  must  observe,  that  in  the  beginning  of  his 
(Shakespeare's)  career,  for  years,  indeed,  after  he  became  can' 
nee  ted  with  the  stage,  that  extraordinary  [.•*]  man  was  satisfied  with 
reconstructing  the  pieces  which  others  had  composed  ;  he  was 
NOT  the  author  but  the  adaitkr  of  them  to  the  stage.  Indeed,  we 
are  of  the  opinion  that  the  number  of  plays  which  he  thu* 
re-cast,  as  well  as  those  in  which  he  made  very  slight  alterations^ 
is  greater  than  any  of  his  commentators  have  supposed." 


"The  second  and  third  parts  of  Kingf  Henry  VI.  were,  we 
all  know,  founded  on  two  old  pieces  viz. :  '  The  hvo  famous 
Houses  of  Yorke  and  Lancaster, '  and  '  TTie  true  Tragedie  of 
Richarde  Duke  of  Yorke.'  Hence  the  allusion  of  Greene  has 
been  thought  confirmatory  of  the  suspicions  that  he  or  some  of 
his  friends  had  written  one,  at  least,  of  these  tragedies  ;  and 
that  Shakespeare,  more  suo  [and  a  manner  peculiar  to  himself 
it  turns  out  to  be],  had  adapted  them  to  the  stage.  This  may 
very  well  have  been  the  case  ;  and  it  is  also  probable  that 
Greene  may  aludc  to  another  fable  of  his,  which  the  bard  of 
Avon  dramatised.  'The  Winter's  Tale'  is  entirely  founded  on 
^ Pandosto,  or  the  Triuimph  of  Time"  which  Greene  published  in 
1588.  Suthcient  is  the  fact  that  the  play  scrupulously  follows 
the  tale,  so  closely  indeed,  as  to  make  Bohemia  a  maritime 
country,  and  vessels  to  reach  the  capital. 

"But  this  is  not  all: — Sixteen,  at  least,  of  the  dramas 
ascribed  to  Shakespeare,  are,  beyond  all  question,  derived  from 
more  ancient  pieces  !'' 

There  were  also  '' Six  Old  Plays"  in  which  Shakespeare 
founded  his  Measure  for  Measure — Comedy  of  Errors — Taming 
the  Shrew — King  John — King  Henry  IV. — King  Henry  V. — and 
King  Lear.  They  were  afterward  gathered  into  two  volumes 
and  published  in  London  in  177Q. 

"  Marlowe  is  positively  said  by  Ch.\lmers  to  have  written 
^Tlie  true  Tragedy  of  Richard  Duke  of  Yorke,'  which  Shakespeare 
remodelled  and  transferred  into  one  of  the  parts  of  Henry  VI. 
He  may  also  have  written  (so  says  the  commentator).  The 
History  of  Henry  the  Sixth  and  the  whole  contention  between  the 
tivo  famous  houses,  Lancaster  and  I'ork.  All  these  were  in 
existence  before  Shakespeare  began  to  write  for  the  stage,  and 
his  (Shakespeare's)  additions  are  few.  ' 

Thomas  Kyd  was  the  author  of  two  plays,  one  called  at  first 
"feronimo,"  and  afterwards  "7%^'  Spanish  Tragedy.'  Some 
additions  were  made  to  this  play,  after  the  author's  death,  by 
no  less  a  writer  than  Bex  Jonson.  "  These  additions  were  con- 
sidered of  greater  value  than  the  original.  The  fable  of  the  trag- 
edy is  not  founded  in  history:  it  is  entirely  a  creation.  A  re- 
semblance between  this  play  and  the  i7awz/e/ attributed  to  Shakes- 
peare has  been  discovered.  In  both,  a  ghost  appears  to  urge 
revenge  on  the  procrastinating  relative  ;  in  both,  there  is  a  play 
within  a  play.  It  shows  that  Shakespeare  was  not  so  much  a 
creator  as  is  supposed.  He  was  frequently  satisfied  with  im- 
proving the  conceptions  of  others.  Hensi.owe,  as  we  find  in 
his  old  Diary,  recently  dug  up  from  obscurity,  paid  the  sum  of 
X.  s.  (probably  for  refreshments)  to  Drayton,  Wilson,  Munday 
and   Hathaway,  the  joint  authors   of  the  play    of    ''Sir  John 


10 

Oldcastle"  after  its  first  performance.  This  play  was  printed  as 
one  of  Shakespeare's,  and  is  the  original  of  all  the  '^  Sir  John 
Falstaffs  "  improperly  said  to  he  the  creations  of  Shakespeare. 

There  were  four  partners,  as  it  appears,  in  the  above  play, 
so  pertinaciously  claimed  for  Shakespeare  from  its  "  internal 
evidence"  upon  which  those,  who  have  imposed  the  Shakes- 
perian  fraud  upon  us,  always  affect  to  rely.  They  know 
Shakespeare  by  instinct*     [^'^Sarkassum."'] 

Drayton,  Chettlf,  and  Decker  wrote  the  "  Famous  wars  of 
Henry  I." 

Ben  Jonson  and  Decker  wrote  the  "  Page  of  Plymouth,"  for 
which  the  very  highest  price  of  that  day  was  given,  namely 
eleven  pounds. 

These  facts  I  gather  from  Henslowe  :  and  it  appears  from 
another  authority  that  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  wrote  in  conjunc- 
tion, or  in  partnership  ;  one  furnishing  the  funds  and  the  other 
the  brains  [like  Chancellor  Livingston  &  Fulton  towards  the  first 
American  steam  navigation],  this  was  the  taste  of  the  age.  Dur- 
ing the  last  thirteen  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  and  during  all 
that  of  James  I.,  partnerships  of  two,  three,  or  four,  and  even 
five  writers,  in  the  same  dramatic  piece,  were  more  common 
than  single  labors  of  the  kind.  One  authority  asserts  that  Shakes- 
peare wrote  in  that  way.  It  is  very  likely.  We  can  easily  dis- 
cover the  part  he  wrote  by  its  filth.  By  that  mark  you  may 
invariably  know  where  his  hand  has  been  at  work. 

Cartwright,  who  wrote  thirty  years  after  Shakespeare's 
death,  is  the  only  early  writer  who  has  said  anything  of  Shakes- 
peare's peculiar  cjuality  ;  that  quality  for  which  alone  he  is  cel- 
ebrated,  namely,   vulgarity  and   "obscene  wit."     Here  is  the 


*["  Horace  &  Aristophanes!  are  fitting  ushers  for  Moliere,  7vho  is  the 
greatest  of  all 'ivr iters  of  conudy,  holding  his  07i<n  by  the  side  <?/"  SHAKESPEARE 
even.  For  the  dramatist  of  to-day  Moliere  is  a  sounder  example  than 
Shakespeare,  as  the  theatre  of  our  time  has  broken  away  from  the  tradi- 
tions of  Shakespeare,  while  it  has  been  developed  along  the  line  which 
Moliere  traced.  Before  they  can  be  acted  now,  Shakespeare's  plays  require 
rearranging  to  an  extent  not  suspected  by  those  who  have  not  compared  the  latest 
acting  edition  with  the  author's  text ;  but  Moliere's  comedies  call  only  for  a 
cutor  two  here  and  there,  and  not  always  even  for  this.  ^^^No  doubt  Shakes- 
peare 'iuas  as  adroit  in  stage-craft  as  any  man  of  his  age;  but  the  best  stage- 
craft of  his  age  is  now  outworn.'©?^  Between  the  age  of  Elizabeth  and  that  of 
Louis  XIV.  the  technicalities  of  play-making — technicalities  which  are  of 
vital  import  when  the  conditions  of  the  theatre  are  considered — were  im- 
proved rapidly,  and  with  Moliere's  help  stage-craft  was  so  far  elaborated 
that  the  "  Precieuses  Ridicules''''  and  •'  Tartufe^^  may  still  serve  as  models 
for  the  comic  dramatist,  whereas  the  comedy  of  Shakespeare  is  a  most 
unsafe  guide  for  the  poet  of  the  present  who  wishes  to  see  his  play 
performed."  Page  317  "77/^  Forum^''  for  November,  1887,  Art.  IX., 
"  Books  that  helped  me,"  by  Brander  Matthews.] 


II 

only  true  and  tangible  record  of  Shakespeare's  character,  as  an 
author  extant,  written  by  one  almost  his  contemporary  : 

*'  Shakespeare,  whose  best  jest  lies 
r  the  lady's  questions  and  the  fool's  replies; 
Whose  wit  our  nicer  times  would  obsceneness  call, 
And  which  made  the  bawdry  pass  for  comical.''' 

The  whole  literary  history  of  Shakespeare  is  thus  written, 
without  compression,  in  four  lines. 

George  Peele  was  one  of  the  persons  to  whom  (ireene  ad- 
dressed his  impressive  farewell  letter.  "And  thou,  no  less  de- 
serving than  the  other  two  "  (Marlowe  and  Lodge).  He  took 
his  degree  at  Oxford  in  1577.  He  is  the  author  of  "The  famous 
Chronick  History  of  King  Edward  the  First,"  which  Shakespeare 
is  supposed  to  have  borrowed  "wore  suo."  He  also  wrote 
"The  Old  Wives'  Tale,"  from  which  Milton  borrowed  his 
^^  Conius.'  Nash  calls  Peele  an  "Atlas  in  poetry;"  and  Thomas 
Campbell  says  of  him  that  "  we  may  justly  cherish  the  memory 
of  Peele  as  the  oldest  genuine  dramatic  poet  of  our  language." 

Henry  Chettle  died  in  16 10.  He  was  concerned  in  38  plays 
•within  the  short  space  of  seven  years. 

Thomas  Lodge,  who  died  in  1626,  was  a  voluminous  writer. 
He  is  the  "Juvenal  '*  to  whom  Green  refers  in  his  letter.  Lodge 
deserves  to  be  known  and  remembered  from  the  fact  that  one 
of  his  works,  "Rosalinde,"  was  pirated  by  Shakespeare,  and 
forms  the  basis  of  ".i4s  You  Like  It.'  It  is  more  than  likely  that 
it  is  the  same  play. 

The  facts  above  stated  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  state  of 
the  Drama  when  the  commentators  suppose  Shakespeare  to  have 
flourished  as  a  writer.  There  were  ample  materials,  certainly, 
for  a  person  of  the  very  moderate  talents  he  possessed,  and  the 
pirating  propensity  he  evinced,  to  luxurate  in.  They  will  also 
account  for  the  circumstance,  that  puzzles  all  his  biographers, 
namely,  that  he  should  have  left  no  record  of  his  literary  labors. 
With  many  of  these  dramatic  cotemporaries  around  him,  I  sup- 
pose it  would  have  been  dangerous  to  claim  their  labors  as  his 
own  which  afterwards  were  attributed  to  him. 

"The  indifference  of  cotemporaries,  and  even  the  generations 
after  the  death  (observes  one  commentator),  to  the  perso7ial  his- 
tory of  Shakespeare,  has  often  been  matter  of  astonishment 
Nobody,  indeed,  so  much  as  cared  for  the  knowledge.  Sir 
William  Dugdale,  a  native  of  Coventry,  about  twenty  miles  from 
Stratford  upon  Avon,  who  published  the  antiquities  of  Warwick- 
shire, thirty  years  only  after  the  poet's  death,  and  who  might 
have  seen  a  score  of  persons  once  familiar  with  him,  did  not 
trouble  himself  to  make  a  single  enquiry  on  the  subject.  Ful- 
ler was  equally  careless.  Edward  Phillips,  author  of  ''Theatrum 
Poetarum,"  just  condescends  to  mention  such  a  man.  Lang- 
baine  and  Blount  and  Gildon  copy  their  predecessors.    Anthony 


i  Wood,  one  of  the  most  industrious  writers  England  ever  pro' 
duced,  who  was  born  fourteen  years  after  Shakespeare's  decease, 
and  who  lived  within  thirty-six  miles  of  the  place  where  so  much 
information  might  have  been  obtained,  has  not  a  syllable  about 
the  dramatist,  though  he  found  room  for  many  other  writers  who 
never  saw  Oxford.  Even  Shakespeare's  family  might  have  been 
consulted.  In  short,  there  never  was  a  person  of  whom  more 
might  /uive  bee?t,  of  whom  so  little  was  collected,  until  the 
attempt  was  vain.  Whence  arose  this  indifference  ?  "  Had  the 
editor  •who  furnished  the  foregoing  extract,  recurred  to  his  own 
writings,  immediately  before  him,  he  might  easily  have  found 
the  reason  for  the  indifference  he  complains  of.  He  has  told 
up  pretty  satisfactorily  where  nearly  all  the  Shakespeare  (not 
Shakspeare's)  plays  came  from  originally,  and  it  is  hardly  to  be 
expected  that  a  man  Avho  merely  adapted  other  people's  works 
to  ihe  playing  stage,  like  a  Theatrical  Factotum,  as  Greene  calls 
him  (and  he  was  nothing  else),  is  worthy  of  any  further 
remembrance  than  such  fact  would  warrant.  He  has  shown  us 
conclusively  that  he  scarcely  deserves  the  name  oi  author.  But 
the  lame  answer  of  this  editor,  insulting  to  the  intelligence  of 
the  age  about  which  he  writes,  is  as  follows:  "The  causes  of 
this  neglect  are  obvious.  The  great  body  of  readers  are  incapa- 
ble of  comprehending  a  master.  "  How  would  this  writer  rank 
Bex  Jonson.  The  great  body  of  readers  comprehended  him  then, 
and  comprehend  ///;«  now;  and  many,  not  without  good  reason, 
suppose  that  he  has  no  equal  as  a  dramatic  poet.  But,  perhaps, 
the  logical  point  of  the  above  writer  consists  in  a  man's  being  a, 
master  only  in  proportion  to  the  dithculty  of  understanding  him. 
It  certainly  has  taken  a  hundred  commentators  to  elucidate 
Shakespeare,  where  scarcely  one  has  been  needed  to  tell  us  what 
the  undefiled  English  of  Jonson  means.  V^  Even  Milton 
studied  Jonsons  style  intently  as  the  most  perfect  of  any  then 
existing  in  the  English  language.  "1^  The  singular  and  perti- 
nacious endeavors  of  Pope  to  work  out  a  fictitious  literary  repu- 
tation for  Shakespeare  by  declaring  that  he  must  necessarily 
have  been  well  versed  in  classic  lore,  and  citing  the  authors 
which  he  must  have  read  to  produce  some  of  his  plays,  is  thus 
summarily  and  conclusively  disposed  of  by  the  writer  in  Lard- 
NER  :  "All  this,  he  says,  "shows  what  we  did  not  expect  to  find 
in  Pope,  namely,  an  almost  entire  ignorance  of  our  early  litera- 
ture " — whence,  in  fact,  the  plays  were  mostly  derived,  some- 
times without  alteration  or  emendation.  Byron,  it  appears, 
regarded  the  Shakespeare  mania  as  a  sort  of  periodical  epidemic  ', 

"  To  be,  or  not  to  be  !     That  is  the  question." 
Says  Shakespeare  who  Just  new,  is  much  in  fashion  ! 


13 

Byron  had  not  read  Plato  in  the  original,  or  he  would 
have  substituted  that  philosopher's  name  for  Shakespeare's, 
perhaps. 

'  'To  speak  the  language  of  Shakspeare, '"  is  a  common  expres- 
sion. That  expression  applied  to  Americans,  was  uttered  by 
one  interested  in  England  on  the  occasion  of  a  public  dinner 
At  which  he  was  a  guest.  The  words  used  were  that  the 
"Americans  speak  the  language  of  Shakespeare  ;  "  intended, 
doubtless,  to  convey  the  idea  that  we  speak  the  English  in  its 
purity.  But  under  favor,  he  did  us  great  injustice,  and  heaped 
upon  us  an  egregious  wrong;  for  who  ever  speaks  the  language 
which  Shakespeare  used,  speaks  in  the  language  of  the  Five 
Points,  or  of  the  obscene  Fish  Women  of  England.  *  If  however, 
he  had  said  that  Americans  speak  the  language  of  "Rare  Ben 
Jonson"  he  would  have  given  us  the  idea  of  perfect  pruity  of 
style  and  elegance  of  diction.  Ben  never  descended  from  the 
high  position  of  a  true  poet,  except  perhaps  to  utter  some  invec- 
tive like  the  following.  Hear  him.  in  the  most  poetical  and 
indignant  words,  while  he  speaks  of  the  stolen  wares  of  his  vul- 
gar cotemporary  from  Stratford  : 

"  I  can  approve 
The  state  of  poesy,  such  as  it  is, 


*  After  reading  a  great  deal  lately  about  Shakespeare,  any  one  having 
a  common-sense  mathematical  mind  must  arrive  at  the  conviction  that  there 
was  no  more  possibility  of  the  generally  accepted  Shakespeare  ever  having 
existed  than  there  is  of  making  a  silk  purse  out  of  the  auricular  appendage 
of  a  female  meml)er  of  tlu*  porcine  genus.  After  gathering  together  quite 
a  little  library  on  the  sul>ject,  nothing  is  found  to  convince  tiie  student 
that  Bacon,  aiofu;  was  Sliakespeare,  but  an  immense  amount  to  prove  that 
the  Sliakespeare  accepted  by  most  people,  never  wrote  what  has  been  attrib- 
uted to  him.  Just  in  the  same  way  that  Burns,  even  at  tlie  end  of  his  life, 
could  not  write  King's  Englisii  but  always  Scotch-English,  even  so  it  was 
impossible  for  an  uneducatetl  young  nuin  to  come  up  from  Warvvickshire, 
a  country  where  a  rude  dialect  wiis  spoken,  and  at  once  compose  a  poem 
in  the  clioicest  English  of  the  time  which  he  dedicated  to  an  English  Lord ; 
wlio,  in  return  for  his  poetry,  j)resented  the  author  with  ;^i,ooo  equivalent 
iit  this  day  to  ten  or  twelve  times  that  amount.  The  whole  thing  is  assertion 
without  proofs  and  to  a  candid  mind,  superlative  "Bosh,"  supremely 
ridiculous.  If  Lord  Southampton  did  give  Shakesjieare  such  an  enormous 
sum,  it  is  more  likely  it  was  as  a  brokerage  or  reward  for  the  kind  of 
services  alluded  to  by  Appleton  Morgan  in  his  '*  The  Shakespearian  Myth," 
Page  273.  And  soon  throughout  the  narration  of  Simkespeare's  life  and 
doings.  Almost  every  statement  except  that  he  was  born,  lived  and  died  is 
without  proof.  One  more  consideration  excites  the  question  :  Would  you 
reader,  would  any  educated  man,  possessed  of  property,  ha\ing  a  position 
in  society  sufficient  to  entitle  you  to  the  possession  of  a  coat  of-arms,  granted 
to  you, — which  certainly  presupposes  some  superiority — would  such  a  per- 
son allow  his  children  to  grow  up  in  such  gross  ignorance  as  not  to  be  able 
even  to  sign  their  names.  Shakespeare  himself,  with  all  his  alleged  ability 
as  a  writer  nevertheless  signed  in  several  (5  ?)  different  ways—  if  he  ever 
sijrned  anvthine  at  all.     Does  it  stand  to  reason  ? 


14 

Blessed,  eternal,  and  most  true  divine  : 
Indeed,  if  you  will  look  on  poesy, 
As  she  appears  in  many,  poor  and  lame, 
Patch'd  up  in  remnants  and  old  worn  out  rags. 
Half  starved  for  want  of  her  peculiar  food. 
Sacred  Invention;  then  I  must  confirm 
Both  your  conceit  and  censure  of  her  merit." 
*  *  ♦  * 

Nor  is  it  any  blemish  to  her  fame, 

That  such  lean,  ignorant,  and  blasted  wits. 

Such  brainless  gulls,  should  utter  their  stolen  wares. 

With  such  applauses  in  our  vulgar  ears  ; 

Or  that  their  slubbered  lines  have  current  pass, 

From  the  fat  judgments  of  the  multitude  ; — 

But  that  this  barren  and  infected  age 

Should  set  no  difference  twixt  these  empty  spirits. 

And  a  true  poet : — than  which  reverend  name 

Nothing  can  more  adorn  humanity. 

O,  rare  Ben  Jonson  !  Can  anyone  doubt  that  "Big  Ben" 
["Honest  Ben,"  Drydens  "  Father  Ben  "]  meant  Shakspeare, 
that  smallest  of  poetasters,  in  these  his  forcible  and  manly  cen- 
sures .''  The  greatest  dramatic  poet  of  England,  speaking  of  the 
meanest  and  the  least:  "Of  Shakespeare's  moral  character  we 
know  nothing,"  says  the  commentator,  and  then  shortly  informs 
us  that  he  kept  a  mistress  in  London.  In  fact  he  never  went 
back  but  twice  to  Stratford  to  see  his  wife  (Anne  Hathaway, 
who  was  eight  years  older  than  himself),  whom  he  married 
when  he  was  eighteen.  The  same  writer  then  asks  the  follow- 
ing question — to  which  he  applies  an  answer  of  unquestionable 
truth  : — "But  is  there  nothing  in  the  works  of  this  celebrated 
man  to  justify  the  suspicion  of  immorality.'*  Who  ever  has 
looked  into  the  original  editions  of  his  dramas,  will  be  disgusted 
with  the  obscenity  of  his  allusions.  They  absolulely  teem  7vith 
the  grossest  impurities — jnore  gross  by  far  than  can  be  found  in 
any  cotemporary  dramatist:'  Another  writer  says,  and  with 
equal  truth,  that  Shakespeare's  obscenity  exceeds  that  of  all  the 
dramatists  that  existed  before  him,  and  cotemporaneously  with 
him  ;  and  he  might  have  included  all  that  ever  came  after  him. 
This  was  the  secret  of  his  success  with  the  play-goers.  The 
plays  he  purchased  or  obtained  surreptitiously,  which  became 
his  "property,"  and  which  are  now  called  his,  were  never  set 
upon  the  stage  in  their  original  state.  They  were  just  spiced 
with  obscenity,  blackguardism  and  impurities,  before  they  were 
produced  ;  and  this  business  he  voluntarily  assumed  and  faith- 
fully did  he  perform  his  share  of  the  management  in  that  respect. 
It  brought  money  to  the  house.  No  wonder  the  "  Lord  Mayor 
and  the  Citizens  "  wished  to  "  avoid  "  the  play-house  in  which 
he  was  concerned. 


15 

Whalley  speaks  of  Shakespeare's  ^'remarkable  modesty.'' 
But  GiFFORD,  the  best  critic  England  ever  had,  observes,  "wg 
shall  he  at  a  loss  to  discover  it. " 

"His  offensive  metaphors  and  allusions, "  says  Steevens, 
"are  undoubtedly  more  frequent  than  those  oi all  his  predeces- 
sors or  cotemporaries. " 

His  profanity  is  thus  noticed  by  Gifford — "He  is,  in 
truth,  the  Coryphoeus  of  profanation. " 

"All  his  sonnets  are  licentious,"  says  another,  and  quotes 
the  libidinous  lines  to  his  mistress.  Many  of  the  plays  attributed 
by  the  moderns  to  Shakespeare  were  acted  at  a  rival  Theatre  of 
which  old  Henslowe  was  treasurer  or  proprietor.  A  most 
singular  discovery  of  facts,  tending  positively  to  disprove  the 
authorship  of  Shakespeare  to  several  of  the  dramas  imputed  to 
him,  is  found  in  Henslowe's  Diary.  It  was  discovered  but  a 
few  years  ago  (1845),  and  is  now  in  possession  of  the  Shakes- 
peare Society  of  London,  but  is  the  property  of  Dulwich  college. 
The  orthography  of  Henslowe  is  exceedingly  "cramp" — but  it 
is  sufficient  evidence  to  be  brought  into  court.  Its  date  runs 
from  1 59 1  to  1609.  The  name  of  Shakespeare  is  not  mentioned 
therein  while  those  of  nearly  all  the  writers  of  mark  of  that  day 
are  repeatedly  spoken  of.  I  have  extracted  several  passages 
from  it. 

"  If  Shakespeare,'  observes  the  commentator  in  Lardner, 
"had  little  of  what  the  world  calls  learning,  he  had  less  of 
invention,  so  far  as  regards  the  fables  of  his  plays.  For  every 
one  of  them  he  was  indebted  ta  a  preceding  piece." 

1.  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona. — The  writer  of  this  play 
is  indebted  for  many  of  its  incidents  to  two  works,  the  Arcadia 
q/"  Sidney,  and  the  Diana  0/  Monte  may  or,  the  latter  work  trans- 
lated into  English  during  the  latter  part  of  the  i6th  century.  By 
some  commentators  this  drama  is  held  not  to  be  Shakespeare's. 
The  commentator  adds,  "we  should  by  no  means  contend  that 
he  wrote  the  whole,  or  even  the  greater  part  of  this  drama. 
During  the  earlier  years  of  his  professional  career,  he  rather 
improved  the  inventions  of  others  than  invented  himself.  It 
was  easier  for  him  to  remodel  old  pieces,  than  to  write  new  ones. 
Hence  the  reproach  of  Greene  that  he  was  beautified  by  the 
feathers  of  others. " 

2.  The  Comedy  of  Errors. — Whoever  wrote  this  play  was 
indebted  to  the  Mencechmi  of  Plautus,  which  was  translated 
into  English  some  years  before  Shakespeare  left  Stratford.  Yet 
whether  Shakespeare  (if  he  is  the  author)  was  immediately 
indebted  to  it,  or  to  a  Comedy  founded  upon  it,  entitled  the 
"  History  of  Error,  "  and  performed  before  Queen  Elizabeth  in 
1576,  is  doubtful.     It  is  supposed  he  did  no  more  than  slightly 


retouch  the  old  Comedy  ;  and  some  commentators  reject  the 
play  as  being  Shakespeares  altogether.  ' '  He  retouched  it "  says 
one  "probably  at  the  request  of  the  manager!"  This  commen- 
tator has  hit  the  fact  exactly,  not  only  in  regard  to  this  play  but 
to  all  the  others  attributed  to  him,  except  perhaps  one,  "The 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,'  which  is  probably  Shakespeare's 
from  its  obscene  "internal  evidence.  '  In  a  note  at  the  bottom 
of  the  page  where  some  of  the  above  facts  are  stated,  the 
following  words  appear : 

"  Six  old  plays,  on  which  Shakespeare  founded  his  Measure 
for  Measure,  Comedy  of  Errors,  Taniing  the  ShrciV,  King  Jolm, 
King  Henry  IV.,  King  Henry  V.,  King  Lear.' 

3.  Love's  Labor  Lost.  — ' '  We  read  of  an  old  play  of  Holof ernes, 
acted  before  the  Princess  Elizabeth  as  early  as  1556;  and  on 
this  the  comedy  before  us  was  based.  In  fact  there  is  no  one 
drama  of  our  author  prior  to  1600,  perhaps  not  one  after  that 
year,  that  was  not  derived  from  some  other  play  !  '"  "  During 
the  earlier  years  of  his  dramatic  career  he  did  little  more  than 
alter  a  piece  that  had  become  obsolete." 

4.  The  Merchant  of  J^enice.  —  "This  play  was  derived  partly 
from  the  Pecorone  of  (jiqvaxxi  Fiorentixo  ;  partly  from  the 
Gesta  Romaxorum,  an  old  English  ballad,  and  Marlowe's /«:«;  of 
Malfa.  In  Gosson's  School  of  Abuse,  published  as  early  as  1579, 
there  is  a  distinct  allusion  to  a  play  containing  the  characteristic 
incidents  in  this  Merchant  of  Venice. 

5.  A  Midsummer  N'ight's  Dream. — The  fable  of  this  play 
is  not  now  considered  Shakespeare's.  Mr.  Tyrwhiit,  supposes 
one  part  of  it  to  be  taken  from  Pluto  and  Proserpina  of  Chaucer: 
but  Guy.y.'se'?,  fimes  the  Fourth  is  doubtless  the  foundation  of  the 
play  ;  and  both  Chaucer  and  Greene  are  supposed  to  have  had 
some  common  current  legend  of  the  day  from  which  they 
derived  their  materials. 

6.  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew. — This  play  is  founded 
entirely  on  an  old  comedy  of  the  same  name,  inserted  in  the 
published  book  of  the  "Six  Old  Plays,"  which  existed  before 
the  day  of  Shakespeare. 

7.  Romeo  and  Juliet. — The  story  of  this  play  was  first 
related  by  a  Novelist  of  Vicenza,  as  early  as  1 535.  It  also  formed 
the  subject  of  a  novel  of  Bandello,  printed  in  1554.  Bristkau,  a 
French  novelist,  soon  gave  it  a  French  form  ;  and  Brooke,  in 
1562,  transferred  it  into  English  verse.  Painter,  also,  in  the 
Palace  of  Pleasure,  took  his  story  of  Rhomeo  and  Julietta  from 
the  French,  and  not  from  the  Italian  novel.  The  writer  of 
Shakespeare's  Romeo  and  Juliet  followed  Brooke,  but  availed 
himself  of  some  things  from  Painter.  With  all  this  knowledge 
before  one  commentator,  who  is  determined  to  hear  nothing 


17 

^against  the  "  genius"  of  "  the  bard,"  he  says — "  The  genius  of 
Shakespeare  cannot  suffer  from  the  fact  that  he  borrowed  the 
foundation  of  all  his  plots.  What  others  left  unfinished,  he 
perfected  :  he  turned  the  dross  of  others  into  fine  gold.  "I  am 
forced  to  the  opinion  that  he,  or  the  one  who  wrote  the  play  in 
question,  took  the  gold  itself  ("wore  sud"),  without  resort  to 
the  process  of  transmutation  by  the  crucible  of  his  "genius." 

8.  As  you  Like  It. — This  play  has  no  greater  originality 
than  the  preceding.  It  is  taken  from  a  novel  of  Thomas  Lodgk, 
QnixWed  Rosalinde.  The  "crow  in  borrowed  feathers,"  spoken 
of  by  Greene,  refers  to  this  piracy  as  well  as  to  others.  ' '  Shakes- 
peare," says  Malone,  "  has  followed  Lodge's  novel  more  exactly 
than  is  his  general  custom.  "  "Whole  sentences,  besides  the 
plot,  are  taken  from  it." 

9.  Much  Ado  About  Xothing. — The  original  is  from  Ariosto; 
but  Shakespeare  knew  nothing  of  Italian,  and  it  is  therefore  to 
be  presumed  that  this  play  is  written  by  some  other  hand.  A 
novel  of  Belkforest  translated  from  Bandei.lo,  contains  the  same 
story  of  the  play,  and  in  default  of  a  reference  to  these,  the 
Genevra  of  Tuberville  could  well  furnish  the  material.  The 
story  is  an  old  one  ;  and  dramatising  a  novel,  using  the  material 
freely,  was  as  common  a  thing  then  as  now.  But  who  at  this 
day  thinks  of  claiming  credit,  or  laying  claim  to  "genius"  for 
such  paltry  "literary  fishery.'" 

10.  Hamlet. — With  the  exception  of  the  grave-digger's 
scene,  inserted  to  catch  the  groundings,  which  may  possibly  be 
the  production  of  the  "genius  of  Shakespeare,"  this  play  owes 
its  paternity  elsewhere.  The  foundation  of  Hamlet  is  notor- 
iously to  be  found  in  Saxo  Grammaticus,  which  Shakespeare 
could  not  read,  notwithstanding  Mr.  Pope  supposes  he  must 
have  been  a  great  scholar.  If  he  wrote  Hamlet,  Pope  was 
probably  near  the  truth  ;  and  it  is  upon  the  supposition  that  he 
wrote  all  the  plays  attributed  to  him,  that  Pope  says  he  must 
have  been  conversant  with  the  classics,  familiar  with  Plautus, 
Dares  Phrygius,  and  Plutarch,  and  he  might  have  added  Plato. 
What  confiding  men  biographers  and  historians  are,  when  they 
have  a  favorite  theory  to  carry  out !  In  addition  to  a  printed 
story  called  The  Historie  of  Hamhlet  then  extant,  there  was  a 
play  called  Hamlet  (acted  as  early  as  1589)  ;  and  another  play 
of  Hamlet  was  also  acted  at  a  rival  Theatre  in  London,  in  the 
year  1594.  at  which  old  Henslowe  was  treasurer.  His  entry  is 
thus  : — "Received  at  Hamlet  viii  s."  "A  poor  night's  receipts, 
that !  Shakespeare  probably  got  this  play  afterwards,  and  inserted 
the  grave-digger's  scene  to  render  it  popular  with  the  play- 
goers. That  was  his  vocation.  At  any  rate  the  soliloquy  of 
"To  BE,  OR  NOT  TO  BE,"  is  a  literal  translation  from  Plato,  and 


judging  from  that  and  the  deep  philosophy  of  the  whole  piece 
(always  excepting  the  Shakespearian  blot  upon  it),  it  must  have 
been  the  creation  of  an  educated  man,  which  Shakespeare  was 
NOT.  It  is  probably  a  partnership  concern.  The  only  man  of 
that  day,  of  poetical  power  sufficient  to  write  the  higher  parts  of 
this  tragedy,  was  Ben  Joxson,  the  greatest  Dramatic  Poet 
England  ever  produced.  Langhorne,  in  his  preface  to  Plutarch, 
referring  to  the  time  of  Shakespeare,  says — "The  celebrated 
soliloquy  'To  he,  or  not  to  he,'  is  taken  almost  verbatim  from  that 
philosopher  (Plato);  yet  we  have  never  found  that  Plato  was 
translated  in  those  times."     Montaigne  is  the  base  of  Hamlet. 

11.  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor. — If  any  play  of  the 
whole  catalogue  is  Shakespeare's,  this  comes  nearest  the  mark. 
The  impress  of  his  vulgar  and  impure  mind  is  upon  every  page. 
Tradition  asserts  that  it  was  composed  at  the  express  command 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  "wished  to  see  Falstaff  in  love."  It 
is  probably,  like  all  the  other  traditions  relating  to  the  "genius" 
of  Shakespeare,  without  foundation,  except  in  the  brain  of  his 
admiring  commentators.  But  he  has  no  originality  even  in  this 
revolting  piece  of  trash.  The  author  was  indebted  to  a  transla- 
tion of  Pecorixo,  and  to  Tarleton's  News  out  of  Purgatory,  for 
his  plot  and  incidents  ;  and  his  Sir  fohn  Falstaff  \s  the  Sir  John 
Oldcastle  of  Drayton,  Wilson^  Munday  and  Hathaw.\y. 

12.  Triolus  and  Cressida. — Whoever  wrote  this  play  took 
the  plot  and  materials  from  the  Italian,  and  from  Chaucer,  and 
from  Lydgate's  Boke  of  Troye.  The  authorship  is  settled  by  an 
entry  in  Henslowe's  Diary  on  the  7th  of  April,  1599,  in  these 
words:  ''  Lent  unto  Thomas  Downton,  to  lende  unto  Mr.  Dickers 
and  Harrey  Cheatell,  in  earneste  of  their  boockes  called  Troydes 
and  Creassedaye,  the  some  of  iij  li."  [This,  if  his,  is  one  of 
Shakespeare's  best  pieces  of  work.] 

13.  Measure  for  Measure. — Founded  on  and  taken  from 
Whetstone's  play  of  Promos  and  Cassandra,  one  of  the  Six  Old 
Plays  already  referred  to. 

14.  Othello. — Was  derived  entirely  from  the  Italian  of  one 
of  Ci.NTHio's  novels  :  but  Shakespeare  knew  nothing  of  Italian, 
even  the  translation  could  not  be  his,  independent  of  the  structure 
of  the  play.  A  French  translation  appeared  in  1584  ;  but  of  the 
French  Shakespeare  was  as  ignorant  as  of  the  Italian. 

1 5.  King  Lear. — The  story  of  Lear  is  drawn  from  Geofferv 
OF  Monmouth  ;  but  the  play  is  one  of  the  Six  Old  Plays,  to 
which  something  was  contributed  by  way  of  amendment,  per- 
haps, from  the  Arcadia,  and  the  Mirror  of  Magistrates.  Hens- 
lowe  had  the  play  at  his  Theatre,  as  is  evident  from  an  entry  in 
his  book  :  "8th  of  April,  1594,  received  at  King  lea  re  XXVI  S." 
It  is  therefore  not  Shakespeare's — for  he  had  no  interest  in  the 


19 

rival  play-house,  and  Henslowe  must  have  owned  the  play  as 
his  "  property." 

1 6.  Al/'s  Well  tliat  Ends  Well. — May  be  found  in  Boccaccio. 
In  Painter's  Palace  of  Pleasure  the  story  is  called  Giletta  of 
Narbon.  This  play  may  have  been  among  the  "properties" 
of  the  Theatre  to  which  Shakespeare  was  attached,  upon  the 
suppression  of  that  drarnatic  nuisance,  by  the  Lord  "Mayor  and 
citizens."  The  only  wonder  is  that  Betterton  and  Rowe,  in 
getting  up  their  " Sliakespeare  Speculation,"  did  not  give  us  a 
second  series  of  a  like  number  of  plays  while  they  were  about 
it,  and  call  them  new  discoveries.  Who  does  not  remember  the 
''Shakespeare  forgeries"  of  Ireland,  which  deceived  the  very 
elect — ! 

17.  Macbeih. — The  incidents  of  the  story,  founded  on 
Scottish  history,  are  all  in  Hector  Boece!  "but  of  Hector,  observes 
one  critic,  "Shakespeare  knew  as  much  as  he  did  of  Hesiod." 
Could  he  read  Hesoid,  think  you }  The  writer  of  the  play  prob- 
ably consulted  Hollinshed  for  a  guide.  Buchanan  thought 
the  subject  a  fit  one  for  the  stage,  and  some  of  the  "Wits"  of 
the  day  took  his  hint  and  produced  it.  Part  of  this  play  is  bor- 
rowed from  MiDDLETONS  production  entitled  The  Witch.  So 
says  Steevens,  or  rather  he  says  the  "bard  of  Avon"  was  not 
the  originator. 

18.  Twelfth  Night. — Derived  remotely  from  the  Italian  of 
Bandello  and  more  immediately  from  Beli.eforest  :  and  partly 
from  The  Historic  of  Appolonius  and  Silla,  a  tale  in  the  collec- 
tion of  Barnaby  Riche. 

19.  Jtditis  Ccesar. — From  Plutarch,  inacessible  to  Shakes- 
peare's "genius."  He  could  not  read  it  in  the  original,  nor  in 
the  French  translation  of  it  by  Amiot.  The  Earl  of  Striling  had 
already  written  a  tragedy  of  that  title.  The  Julius  Caesar 
attributed  to  Shakespeare  is  undoubtedly  the  following,  as 
noticed  by  old  Henslowe,  the  theatrical  treasurer:  "  22d  of 
May,  1602,  lent  unto  the  companye  to  geve  unto  Antoney 
Monday  and  Mikell  Drayton,  Webster,  Mydleton  and  the  rest, 
in  earneste  of  a  Boocke  called  st'sers  Falle,  the  some  of  V  li." 
It  is  possible  that  Shakespeare's  managers  purchased  this  play 
and  set  it  upon  their  stage. 

20.  Atitonv  and  Cleopatra. — The  foundation  of  this  play  is 
derived  from  the  same  sources  as  Julius  Caesar — namely,  the 
classic  historians.  There  were  two  tragedies  in  being  when  the 
above  was  produced,  one  c^Wed  Antony,  by  Lady  Pexbroke,  and 
the  other  Cleopatra,  by  Daniel.  Both  Daniel  and  her  ladyship 
were  indebted  to  a  translation  of  Gamier,  whose  tragedy  had 
great  celebrity.  The  writer  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  is  greatly 
indebted  to  all  three  of  the  above-named  authors. 


20 

21.  Cymheline. — This  play  is  derived  from  three  sources, 
a  novel  of  Boccaccio,  an  English  tale  called  Westward  for  Smells, 
and  Geoffery's  British  Chronicle.  The  common  remark  of  the 
commentators;  when  a  poor  thing  turns  up,  which  is  to  be  Shakes- 
peare's, is  a  stereotype  phrase.  Here  is  one  :  "Cymbeline  is  a 
poor  drama,  and  perhaps  one  that  Shakespeare  did  not  compose, 
but  merely  improved.'"     Very  likely. 

2  2.  Tinion  of  Athens. — The  commentator  says  this  play  is 
of  the  "same  stamp"  as  the  foregoing.  It  was  certainly 
indebted  to  a  former  tragedy  of  the  name,  never  printed,  but 
well  known  in  MS.  The  incidents  are  taken  from  Painter's 
Palace  of  Pleasure,  and  Plutarch." 

23.  Coriolanus. — This  play  is  also  derived  from  Plutarch. 
It  is  therefore  none  of  Shakespeare's — not  because  it  was 
derived  from  Plutarch,  but  because  it  must  have  been  written 
by  some  writer  of  classic  mind  and  education,  who  could  look 
into  the  original.  //  is  as  far  beyond  Shakespeare's  powers  as 
Hamlet,  fl^"  Shakespeare  was  a  vulgar  and  unlettered  man — or 
his  commentators  and  biographers  belie  him  in  their  facts.  What 
they  suppose  is  another  thing. 

24.  The  Winter  Tale. — The  paternity  of  this  play  belongs 
to  Robert  Greene  ;  the  obscenity  to  Shakespeare.  The  commen- 
tator, seeing  that  the  play  is  unworthy  of  a  passing  thought, 
except  unmitigated  contempt,  says  "it  is  unworthy  of  Shakes- 
peare's genius. '"  He  is  wrong  there,  it  smells  of  his  "genius" 
all  over.  "The  substance  of  it,  '  he  continues,  "must  have 
appeared  in  some  earlier  drama. " 

25.  The  Tempest. — Founded  on  an  Italian  novel ;  and  on 
Robert  Greene's  ^//>//o;isf/5.  The  commentator  says  "there  is 
more  invention  in  this  piece  than  in  any  other  that  Shakespeare 
has  left  us."  Doubtless — but  Shakespeare  was  no  inventor,  nor  did 
he  write  this  piece,  though  he  may  have  had  it  among  his 
"properties," 

26.  King  John. — Founded  on  a  former  play  of  that  name, 
and,  in  fact,  written  by  Rowley.  If  it  ever  was  the  "property" 
of  Shakespeare,  he  paid  the  usual  fee  for  it,  to  wit  from  5  to  10/. 
"It  is  founded  on  one  of  the  six  old  plays "  of  that  name. 

27.  Richard  11. — There  was  a  play  of  this  title,  which  is 
referred  to  by  Camden,  long  prior  to  the  time  of  Shakespeare. 
The  commentator  gives  this  play  up  also,  thus:  "probably 
Shakespeare  did  no  time  more  than  alter  the  one  already  in 
possession  of  the  stage.  This  supposition  is  confirmed  by 
internal  evidence.  It  is  decidedly  inferior  to  some  of  his  other 
historical  plays  ;  and  the  manner  seems  to  be  different."  As  to 
"manner,"  all  of  the  series  may  be  said  to  differ  from  each 
other;  they  were  all  written  by  different  hands. 


21 


28.  Henry  IV.  —  "The  two  parts  of  Henry  IV,  were  cer- 
tainly  founded  on    preceding   dramas  :    the    old   play    of   The 

famous  Victories  of  King  Henry  V.,  which  appeared  in  1519, 
furnished  one  author  with  many  of  his  characters  and  incidents 
and  secondly  the  play  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle."  Thus  much  for 
the  confession  of  the  critic.  Fuller  says,  "  Stage  poets  have 
been  very  bold  with,  and  others  very  sorry  at  the  memory  of 
Sir  John  Oldcastle,  whom  they  have  fancied  a  boon  companion, 
a  jovial  royster,  and  a  coward  to  boot.  The  best  is.  Sir  John 
Falstaff  has  relieved  the  memory  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  and  of 
late  is  substituted  buffoon  in  his  place.  "  The  play  of  Sir  John  Old- 
castle, referred  to  before,  was  printed  and  claimed  as  one  of 
Shakespeare's,  with  as  much  pertinacity  as  the  rest ;  but  was 
withdrawn  and  given  up  to  the  owners,  Drayton  and  company, 
notwithstanding  the  "internal  evidence  of  Shakespeare's 
genius,"  with  which  it  was  thought  to  be  imbued.  Let  Falstaff 
change  his  name  to  Oldcastle,  and  he  is  no  longer  Shakespeare's. 
Oh,  those  "Six  Old  Plays!  "  "Sir  John  Oldcastle"  ceased  to  receive 
encomium,  as  soon  as  it  ceased  to  be  claimed  for  Shakespeare. 

29.  King  Henry  V. — Founded,  by  universal  concession, 
on  preceding  dramas  with  the  same  title.  Nash  refers  to  one 
as  early  as  1592,  well  known  on  the  stage,  which  had  been 
represented  prior  to  1588.  In  1594  was  another — "probably  the 
same,"  several  others  appeared  afterwards.  In  the  "  Six  Old 
Plays  '  there  is  a  drama  with  the  same  title,  "  probably  the 
one  to  which  Nash  alluded."  Henslowe  records  having 
"  received  at  hary  the  V.,"  several  sums  of  considerable  amount, 
on  its  representation  at  his  theatre.  That  fact  alone  is  (luite 
sufficient  to  show  that  it  was  none  of  Shakespeare's. 

30.  A'ing  Henry  VI.  —  "The  three  parts  of  King  Henry  VI, 
were  assuredly  not  the  work  of  Shakespeare,  though  he 
retouched  all  of  them,  except  perhaps  the  tirst,'  so  says  his 
commentator.  They  were  founded  on  the  old  dramas  of  the 
"■First  part  of  the  contention  of  the  two  Houses  of  I'orke  and 
Lancaster  ;"  and  the  "  True  Tragedy  of  Richard  Duke  of  Fork, 
and  the  Death  of  goed  King  Henry  the  Sixth. "  The  former  of 
these  old  dramas  was  printed  in  1594,  and  the  latter  in  1595,  but 
both  were  represented  long  before.  To  Greene,  Peele  and 
Marlowe,  their  authorship  is  attributed.  Hence  Greene's 
expressions,  on  his  dying  bed,  already  referred  to,  in  his  letter 
to  Marlowe,  Lodge  and  Peele,  of  "upstart  crow  beautified 
with  our  feathers "'  and  a  parodied  quotation  from  the  First  Part 
of  the  Contention  of  the  two  Houses,  "  O  tiger's  heart,  wrapt  in  a 
players  hide  I"'  Shakespeare  had  used  their  plays  probably 
without  paying  for  them,  "  more  suo,"  and  they  still  form  part  of 
Shakespeare's  list  of  plays  ;  at  least  his  editors  print  them  as  such. 


22 

31.  J^ing-  Richard  III. — This  great  drama,  one  that  has 
kept  the  stage  longest  and  with  the  greatest  poi)ularity,  seems  to 
be  given  up  without  a  struggle,  notwithstanding  the  "internal 
evidence.''  "  Here,  "  the  commentator  says,  "  Shakespeare  had 
also  prior  dramas  *  before  him,  some  of  them  are  enumerated  in 
the  last  edition  of  Malone  by  Boswell:  and  a  mutilated  copy  of 
one,  zvhtch  our  draviafist  had  certainly  in  view,  is  printed  in  the 
19th  volume  of  that  laborious  work."  Henslowe  has  this  entry 
in  his  diary:  '^  Lent  unto  benjanty  /ohnsone,  in  earneste  of  a 
Boocke  called  Richard  Crookbnke,  ajid  for  new  odicyons  for 
feronyme,  the  sum  of  X li." 

It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  playing  copy 
of  Richard,  now  used,  is  greatly  altered  from  the  original.  All 
the  most  striking  arid  beautiful  passages  are  the  work  of  modern 
hands.  Garrick  first  undertook  to  remodel  it,  and  several  pro- 
fessional hands  have  since  been  at  work  at  it.  Indeed  this  is 
the  case  with  all  the  "Shakespeare  "  acting  dramas.  The 
originals,  with  their  obsolete  and  obscene  defects  and  blemishes, 
would  not  be  tolerated  for  a  moment  upon  the  present  English 
or  American  stage.  9^  The  authors  that  wrote  them  originally, 
could  not,  by  any  possibility,  recognize  them  in  the  present 
text.^t 

32,  King  Henry  VIII. — It  has  heretofore  been  believed, 
upon  pretty  good  grounds,  that  Rowley  was  the  author  of  this 
play,  or  at  least  furnished  the  foundation  and  material  for  its 
construction.  The  title  of  his  drama  is  TJie  Famous  Chronicle 
History  of  King  Henry  the  Eighth.   Rowley  was  cotemporary  with 

* ' '  The  True  Traf^edie  of  Richard,  Duke  of  Yorke,  and  the  Death  of  good 
King  Henrie  the  Sixth.  "With  the  whole  contention  betweene  tlie  two 
Houses  of  Lancaster  and  Yorke  As  it  was  sundrie  times  acted  by  the  Right 
Honourable,  the  Eari.e  of  Pembroke,  his  Servants." 

"  Printed  at  London,  by  P.  S.  for  Thomas  Mh.lington,  and  are  to  be 
sold  at  his  Shoppe,  under  Saint  Peter's  Church,  in  Cornwal,  1595. 

"This  is  in  Duodecimo.  It  is,  in  the  eyes  of  Collectors,  invaluable. 
Mr.  Chalmers  purchased  it  for  something  more  than  six  pounds,  at  the  sale 
of  Dr  Pegge's  books:  but  if  it  were  now  exposed  to  sale,  it  would  not 
improbably  produce  fifty. 

"Mr.  Chalmers  iti  his  Supplemental  Apology,  has  produced  some  most 
extraordinary  and  convincing  proofs,  that  Shakespeare  copied  much  of  this  {his) 
play  from  one  of  Marlow'  s  on  the  same  subject.  I  shall  only  produce  two  lines, 
and  refer  the  curious  reader,  for  other  particulars,  toMrChalmer's  volume, 
above  referred  to,  p  293  et.  seq. 

"Marlow.     Glos.     "What!  will  the  aspiring  blood  of  Lancaster 
Sink  into  the  ground,  I  had  thought  it  would  have  mounted." 

Shakkspeark.     Glos.     "  What !  will  the  aspiring  blood  of  Lancaster 
Sink  in  the  ground,  I  thought  it  would  have  mounted" 

Anecdotes  of  Literature  and  Scarce  Books  by  the  Rev  William  Beloe^ 
Translator  of  Herodotus,  &c.,  In  two  Volumes,  Vol  I.  London,  1807,  pages 
364-5- 


23 

"Shakespeare,  but,  recently,  a  partnership  with  Rowley  in  its 
authorship  has  been  discovered.  Henslowes  Diary  has  the 
following  entry  :  "J/Zf  Jttnc,  1601.  Lent  «wA>Samweli.  Rowlye 
to  pay  same  unto  marye  CHETTELL,yor  writtinge  the  Boocke  ofCarnall 
Woheye  lyfe  the  stim  XX  s."  The  inference  is  irresistible,  that 
Shakespeare  is  as  innocent  of  the  production  of  this  play,  as  of 
those  which  are  more  plumply  denied  because  they  are 
"  unworthy  of  his  genius."  It  is  idle  to  speculate  in  the  face  of 
such  positive  testimony.  He  was  the  mere  "factotum"  of  a 
theatre — a  copyist  for  the  prompter — and  an  arranger  of  the 
parts  with  the  cues  copied  out  for  the  actors  :  a  very  responsible 
and  laborious  station,  certainly — but  it  does  not  make  an 
author  nor  give  him  any  title  to  the  authorship  of  the  pieces  he 
sets  upon  the  stage. 

^■^ .  Pericles.  — The  '  'bard's"  chronicler  says  that '  'Pericles  is 
certainly  not  the  offspring  of  Shakespeare's  genius.  No  inge- 
nuity can  show  that  there  is  the  least  affinity  between  the 
mind  which  produced  it  and  that  of  our  author.  It  would 
disgrace  even  the  third  rate  dramatist  of  Shakespeare's  age." 
[The  dirt  in  some  of  Shakespeare's  dramas  is  simply  atrocious. 
Without  attempting  to  specify  scenes  it  is  glaring  in  the  Two 
Gentlemen  0/  Verona  ;  wherever  Falstaff  cum  suis  is  introduced  ; 
in  Measure  for  Measure ;  in  Lear,  Hamlet,  Timon  0/  Athens, 
Troilus  and  Crcssida ;  even  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  but  is  most 
-atrocious  in  Pericles.  There  is  no  need  however  of  dwelling 
further  upon  this  subject.  The  refined  reader  is  often  startled 
that  even  a  rude  age  should  have  tolerated  such  Aristophanic 
nastiness.  ] 

This  is  no  proof  one  way  or  the  other.  But  the  denial  of  his 
chronicles  would  seem  to  establish  the  fact,  if  assertion  goes  for 
anything,  that  it  was  absolutely  Shakespeare's,  except  that 
Shakespeare  does  not  come  up  to  the  level  of  a  third  rate 
dramatist  of  any  age.  When  his  admirer  asserts  that  a  play 
belongs  absolutely  to  Shakespeare,  he  finds  himself  negatived  by 
positive  proof:  and  it  is  fair  to  presume  if  there  is  the  usual 
"internal  evidence"  of  blackguardism  in  Pericles,  it  is  Shakes- 
peare's or  at  least  that  part,  which  is  thus  marked,  is  his. 

34.  Titui^  Andronicus. — The  same  remarks  precisely,  both 
of  chronicler  and  underwriter,  as  above  given,  apply  here. 
This  play,  however,  like  that  of  Pericles,  continues  to  be 
presented  as  Shakespeare's,  and  is  claimed  for  Shakespeare.  The 
following  entries,  however,  in  the  books  of  the  rival  Theatre  or 
rather  in  old  Henslowe's  diary,  settle  the  question  as  to  its  not 
being  Shakespeare's  "  1594  "at  several  dates,  ''received  at  titus 
Mnd  ondronicus,  3I.  8s. ; — 2 1. ; — XX  xi  is ; — 7s. "  [The  drift  of  this  play 
is  for  the  most  part  simply  brutal  without  redeeming  beauties.] 


?4 

The  audiences  must  have  been  slim  in  those  days  !  Verily 
that  "speculation"  of  Rowe  and  Betiertgn  has  been  the  cause 
of  mighty  contention  among  the  learned  commentators  of  this 
age.  How  much  good  Christian  ink  has  been  spent  in  writing 
up  a  worthless  subject,  I  mean  Shakespeare  in  person,  and 
how  much  scholarship  and  research  have  been  exhausted  to 
furnish  the  means  of  sending  him  to  "quod!"  The  question  put 
into  the  mouth  of  Lady  Bettys  waiting  maid  in  High  Life 
below  Stairs,  "  Who  wrote  Shakespeare?"  was  laughed  at,  as  a 
good  theatrical  joke,  some  years  ago  ;  but,  when  it  is  new  asked, 
there  is  ' '  not  so  vuich  laughi?ig  as  formerly. "  And  the  theatrical 
pleasantry  of  playing  one  of  Shakespeare's  plays  without 
speaking  a  word  from  Shakespeare,  was  actually  carried  out  by 
John  Kemble,  who,  in  setting  Hamlet  upon  the  stage,  left  out  the 
grave-digger's  scene  [which  in  some  respects,  if  not  in  all,  may 
be  due  to  Lord  Vere]  as  unworthy  of  the  play  ;  and  thus  the 
play  was  played,  and  well  played  too,  doubtless,  without  a 
word  being  uttered  from  Shakespeare — for  that  scene  is  all  that 
is  his.  Upon  the  same  principle  that  the  Shakespeare  series  of 
plays  selected  by  Rowe  and  Bettertox  are  called  Shakespeare's, 
might  we  call  the  rare  old  tracts  and  papers  of  the  Harleian 
Miscellany,  the  Earl  of  Oxford's,  because  they  were  found  in 
his  library,  and  some  of  them  copied  in  his  handwriting.  If 
they  had  been  buried  a  century  or  two,  he  certainly  would  have 
been  their  author  with  the  commentators  of  the  calibre  of  those, 
generally,  who  have  written  upon  Shakespeare. 

About  a  century  hence,  when  our  old  Metropolitan  Theatre 
of  the  Park  [on  Park  Row]  shall  be  turned  into  a  brewery  of 
beer,  or  a  huge  manufactory  of  some  future  Solomon's  Balm  of 
Gilead,  or  some  life-preserving  Panacea  of  an  unborn  Swaim, 
those  who  come  after  us  may  find  its  "properties"  barrelled 
up  and  stowed  away  in  some  lumber  garret  Then  will  some 
"speculating  Rowe  and  Betterton  "  gloat  over  the  tons  of  plays 
and  operas  that  have  been  acted  in  our  day,  and  the  chirography 
of  our  industrious  and  respectable  Mr.  Peter  Richixgs  (*)  will  be 
recognized,  in  perhaps  an  hundred  plays  prepared  by  him  for 
the  prompter  ;  and  perhaps  the  music  of  a  score  of  operas 
copied  in  his  own  handwriting,   will  be  found  as  well.     Then 

*  One  of  the  smartest  and  most  genial  stage  managers  and  most  versa- 
tile, favorite,  popular  actors  and  warl>lers  and  ''general  utility"  members  of  a 
company  whom  the  New  York  stage  has  ever  known.  The  writer  remembers 
him  well  and  knows  the  high  appreciation  felt  for  him  by  the  select  and 
critical  audiences  of  the  preceding  generation.  Few  could  set  or  control 
a  company  upon  the  stage,  with  more  discretion  or  effect,  better  than  he. 
He  is  ever  present  like  a  speaking  picture  to  the  memory,  especially  in 
parts  requiring  silent  humor  or  digni^ed  fun. 


25 

will  the  forgotten  play-writers  of  our  day  have  a  resurrection 
and  Mr.  Richings  an  uncoveted  immortality. 

Mozart  and  Rossini,  too,  sunk  perhaps  in  the  night  of  the 
intervening  age,  will  tome  forth  anew,  and  the  handwriting  of 
that  useful  attache  of  the  Park,  will  be  enquired  about,  and 
identified  after  long  and  indefatigable  research.  The  operas 
and  the  manuscript  plays  will  be  his  by  the  same  token,  and  that 
"internal  evidence ""  (the  handwriting),  will  be  the  proof  by 
which  to  test  the  identity  and  authorship  of  all  those  cotem- 
porary  productions. 

Richings  ! — Your  fate  is  posthumous  fame,  by  this  process 
— And  even  little  Oliffe,  the  keeper  of  the"  property  room" 
and  player  of  all  the  big  soldier  parts,  will  have  a  glorious  run 
for  immortality  ! 

Here  ends  Hart  ! 

From  *  Page  2  to  *  *  25  is  quoted  from  "The  ||  Romance  of 
Yachting  :  ||  Voyage  the  First.  "  ||  By  Joseph  C.  Hart,  ||  Author  of 
"Miriam  Cotlfin,"  &c.,  ||  New  York,  ||  Harper  &  Brothers,  Pub- 
lishers, II  82  Cliff  Street,  ||  1848.  Pages  209  to  243.  The  remarks 
or  sentences,  etc.,  between  [  ]  and  notes  are  by  J.  W.  de  P. 
The  Ninth  Edition  of  the  Encyclopu'dia  Britannica  concedes  that 
Harts  book  was  "first  work  containing  doubt  of  Shakespeare's 
Authorship,"  and  here  let  it  be  remarked  that  the  whole 
article  on  Shakespeare  in  the  Encylopu'dia  Britannica  is  what 
might  be  termed  sensational  or,  perhaps  more  properly,  emo- 
tional— gush — certainly  not  biography  or  trustworthy  authority: 
and  such  also  to  as  great  a  degree,  although  to  less  extent  as  to 
power  of  influencing  opinion,  is  the  article  in  Pierre  Larousse's 
French  Universal  Lexicon  of  the  XIX  century.  The  editor, 
so  often  grandly  independent,  in  this  case  appears  to  pin  his 
faith  on  the  opinion  of  Victor  Hugo,  who  may  in  some  respects- 
be  termed  a  genius  but  is  often  what  calm  or  cold  Anglo-Saxon 
minds  consider  as  verging  on  the  charlatan,  realizing  the  expres- 
sion of  Napoleon  that  "  there  is  but  one  step  from  the  sublime  to 
the  ridiculous. " 

Even  in  regard  to  the  Portraits  of  Shakespeare,  we  have 
nothing  that  is  trustworthy.  If  Jonson's  eulogistic  lines  were 
written  to  go  with  Shakespeare's  portrait  to  which  they  are 
appended, — then  the  reputed  likeness  represents  "as  stu- 
pified,  stultified,  and  insignificant  a  human  countenance  as  was 
ever  put  upon  an  engraver's  surface, " — /.  e. ,  paper — and  those  lines 
stamp  the  poet  as  a  miserable  perverter  of  the  truth,  positively 
mendacious.  Such  lines  and  such  a  portrait  do  not  belong  to- 
each  other.  The  probability  is  that  Jonson  wrote  the  lines  for  an 
entirely  different  portrait,  that  of  another  man — and  they  were 


26 

altered  to  suit  the  case  of  Shakespeare  ''/or  a  consideration. "  What 
is  more,  comparing  the  favorable  verses,  which  Jonson  is  said  to 
have  written  in  regard  to  Shakespeare,  with  the  vast  aggregate 
that  it  is  well-known,  he  wrote  adversely  to  him,  honest  criti- 
cism is  placed  in  the  dilemma,  either  to  grasp  one  horn  of  it  and 
believe  that  Honest  Ben  was  Dishonest  Ben  and  wrote  pro  or  con 
with  a  hireling  pen,  or  else  that  other  parties  stole  or  otherwise 
appropriated  Jonson's  praises  of  some  other  poet  and  used,  or 
rather  Misused  them,  to  assist  or  insure  the  sale  of  the  works 
attributed  to  Shakespeare.  Moliere  has  been  highly  lauded  for 
his  wholesale  appropriation  of  the  wit  and  wisdom  of  others 
and  justified  on  his  plea,  that  "  he  took  his  own  {i.e.:  stole  what 
suited  him)  wherever  he  found  it."  This  is  all  very  good  as 
regards  the  effect  upon  the  public — its  gratification  ;  but  it  cer- 
tainly does  not  go  far  to  establish  the  original  genius  or 
•even  the  honesty  of  a  writer  who,  like  Moliere,  omits 
quotation  marks  and  references  to  the  authors  from  whom 
he  purloined  gems  of  thought.  However  tasty  and  astonishing 
the  setting  may  be,  gems  derive  no  intrinsic  value  from 
the  jewelry  work  around  them.  Take  them  out  of  the 
metal  and  they  will  sell  just  the  same  as  when  set  and  they 
are  often  taken  out  and  weighed  before  sold — and  therefore 
an  honest  man  qualifies  a  collection  of  brilliant  thoughts 
from  others,  "as  an  Anthology"  or  else  gives  it  some 
other  title  which  does  not  carry  with  it  the  idea  that  it  is  the 
offspring  of  the  editor  or  compiler's  own  brain.  An  honest 
critic  should  truly  be  invested  with  the  legs  of  one  of  the  Wading 
tribes  of  birds  to  venture  into  the  shallows  of  the  idolatrous 
twaddle  of  the  usual  commentators  on  Shakespeare  and  to  have 
a  very  broad  spread  of  toes  to  avoid  sinking  into  the  thin  mud 
of  their  brains.  Or,  else  the  critic  should  belong  to  the  tribe  of 
Divers,  to  plunge  down  into  the  depths  of  the  abstractions  and 
imaginations  of  what  are  termed  Shakespearian  scholarship,  to 
pull  up,  like  the  Canvas-backs,  the  wild  celery  on  which  such  birds 
fatten ;  too  often  to  be  robbed  of  it  by  the  more  sagacious 
Red-heads,  who  quietly  remain  on  the  surface  in  the  full  light  of 
the  sun  (of  Truth)  to  snatch  the  pabulum  acquired  with  such 
difficulty  and  then  digest  it  for  their  own  immediate  benefit  and 
the  future  pleasure  of  the  many.  While  there  are  so  many  wild 
probabilities  and  possibilities  and  babble  and  manufactured 
testimony  and  even  traditions,  of  the  same  kidney  and  respect- 
ability  as   the   PsEUDO-IsmoRE  Decretals  *  on  which  and  more 

*  See  Dr.  Theodore  Griesinger's  "Mysteries  of  the  Vatican,"  London, 
Wm.  H.  Allen  &  Co.,  1864,  Vol.  I.,  Chapter  i.  "Development  of  the  Papal 
Idea,"  Chapter,  n.  "The  Papacy  in  its  glory," — Pseudo-Isidore — Pages, 
159-164. 


27 

-such,  the  Papal  Church  founds  its  false  claims — yes,  while  Shakes- 
pearian scholars  have  little  or  nothing  whereon  to  found  their 
visionary  creations,  there  are  plenty  of  facts  to  prove  incontest- 
ably  where  Shakespeare  found  his  Hippocrene  ;  (Fountain  of  the 
Muses)  viz:  in  the  brains,  real  geniuses,  of  such  rara'  aves  as  Plato, 
Plutarch,  Bacon,  Montaigne,  Sidney  (from  whom  Shakespeare 
is  said  to  have  derived  his  inspiration),  while  he  ladled  up  or 
received  into  his  bowl  the  clear  and  invigorating  liquid,  in  so 
doing  he  unfortunately  either  scooped  up  some  of  the  sand  or 
weeds  at  the  bottom  or  added  dirt  to  it  afterwards. 

Rogniat,  one  of  the  most  philosophical  of  military  writers, 
commenting  on  the  character  of  the  most  successful  generals 
who  have  shown  extraordinary  ability  in  various  directions, 
says  that  the  genius  of  the  greatest  men  is  always  very  limited 
and  their  success  is  due  to  the  happy  employment  of  two  or 
three  new  ideas  exactly  applicable  to  the  circumstances  of  the 
time.  If  such  be  the  case  with  generals,  how  much  more 
is  it  to  be  the  fact  in  regard  to  every  other  class  of  eminent  men. 
Superiority  in  war  is  often  a  matter  of  simple  intuition.  It  is 
not  so  in  any  one  of  the  lines  of  superiority  attributed  to 
Shakespeare.  Poujoulat  justly  remarks,  that  "circumstances  are 
as  indispensable  to  the  development  and  success  of  genius  as  the 
wind  for  the  sails  of  a  vessel.  Genius  has  to  be  supported 
and  even  pushed  to  fulfill  its  complete  destiny."  TTiis  very 
striking  remark  is  exactly  applicable  to  the  case  of  Shakespeare. 
To  be  what  his  admirers  and  the  multitude  deluded  by  them, 
believe  him  to  have  been,  needed  all  the  support  and  impulse 
of  circumstances  which  did  not  exist  in  his  case,  and,  in  his  time, 
could  not  have  existed.  There  is  a  vulgar  expression  but  very 
forcible  which  exactly  expresses  the  truth  with  regard  to  the 
psuedo  "bard  of  Avon,''  whose  is  a  "cooked  up"  reputation. 
If  ever  there  was  a  manufactured  greatness  it  is  his.  It  belongs  to 
the  class  of  all  successful  fanaticisms  and  bigotries.  They  are  not 
of  mushroom  growth  but  of  develo])ment.  Like  the  Papacy  once, 
however,  that  they  have  taken  hold  of  a  faction  or  the  multitude, 
it  would  seem  that  reason  and  truth  have  little  or  no  effect  in 
shaking  the  delusion.  The  "veiled  Prophet  of  Khorassan,"  even 
when  he  reveals  his  real  hideousness  still  finds  believers. 

"There  ye  wise  Saints,  behold  your  Light,  your  Star,— 
Ye  -ti'outd  be  dupes  and  victims,  and  ye  are." 
"  And  they  beh"e\e  him  ! — No,  the  lover  may 
Distrust  that  look  which  steals  his  soul  away; — 
The  babe  may  cease  to  think  that  it  can  play 
With  Heaven's  rainbow;— alchemists  may  doubt 
The  shinintj  gold  their  crucible  gives  out; 
But  Faith,  f ami  tic  Faith,  ona-  wedded  fast 
To  some  dear  falsehood,  hugs  it  to  the  last. ' ' 


28 

Therp  are  some  kinds  of  delusion  that  can  be  instantly 
detected  by  scientific  tests,  while  they,  equally  apparent  to  the- 
adept,  cannot  always  be  reached  by  the  touch-stone  of  truthful 
demonstration.  Some  are  not  worth  the  labor  of  disillusioniza- 
tion.  The  frauds  and  assumptions  of  the  Papacy  have  lasted  over 
one  thousand  years  in  full  force  and  Mahomedanism  almost  as 
long.  Any  one  who  will  read  that  remarkable  pamj)hlet  of — 
Andrew  Dickson  White,  President  of  Cornell  University,  "The 
Warfare  of  Science"  will  be  convinced  that  Truth  has  a  harder 
fight  for  acceptation  than  Error,  particularly  if  the  latter  is  more 
acceptable  to  the  masses.  Considering  the  shortness  of  human 
life,  it  requires  the  faith  of  the  true  believer  to  find  consolation 
in  the  promise  of  the  New  Testament,  that  the  truth  will  sooner 
or  later  be  made  manifest.  In  the  writer's  very  extensive  and 
valuable  Library,  in  the  compartment  assigned  to  "Precious 
Stones,"  is  a  work  not  as  old  as  the  7nyth  of  Shakespeare  which 
states  that  "a  diamond  can  be  dissolved  in  goat's  blood."  This 
assertion  had  been  repeated  as  a  fact  in  successive  treatises,  as 
an  acknowledged  fact,  when  the  first  sceptic,  who  should  try  the 
experiment  could  have  discovered  the  falsity.  For  centuries  it 
was  believed  that  goblets  of  Venetian  glass  and  cups  made  out 
of  rhinocerous  horn  would,  by  splintering,  reveal  the  presence 
of  poison.  Neither  of  these  assertions  like  that  in  regard  to  the 
diamond,  could  have  stood  the  test  of  actual  honest  expeiiment 
How  many  centuries  were  people  convinced  that  the  Salamander 
could  exist  amid  flames  and  rather  enjoy  such  a  fiery  residence. 
When  the  naturalist  threw  an  unhappy  Salamander  into  the  fire 
he  found  that  the  miserable  reptile  perished  at  once  like  any 
other  organization  exposed  to  such  a  trial.  Quite  a  voluminous 
work  was  devoted  to  the  correction  of  "Popular  Errors."  The 
reputation  of  the  mythical  Shakespeare  can  no  more  continue  to 
exist  under  the  fiery  ordeal  of  common  sense  than  the  Sala- 
mander invested  with  fabulous  properties  can  continue  to  live  in 
actual  fire. 

Before  medicine  and  surgery  became  an  exact  science,  it 
was  asserted  that  "an  headache  could  be  cured  by  kissing  a 
pretty  girl. "  In  view  of  the  innumerable  headaches  common 
in  consequence  of  indiscretions  and  debauches,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  caustic  irony  observes  that  "it  is  difficult  to  improve  on 
some  such  old  fashioned  remedies."  It  is  doubtful  if  even 
Solomon  or  Sardanapalus  in  the  possession  of  their  hundreds  of 
beauties  ever  had  a  headache,  consequent  upon  an  orgie,  cured 
by  kissing  a  dozen  pretty  girls.  This  pleasant  remedy  is  about 
as  true  as  the  senseless  idea  that  the  Shakespeare  of  common 
acceptation  could  have  existed  except  through  a  miraculous  gift 
of  understanding  such  as  was  bestowed  upon  Solomon. 


29 

In  the  course  of  this  world's  story  there  have  been  a  few 
individuals  to  whom  has  been  ascribed  the  title  of  "Universal 
(ieniuses/'  Among  these  two  stand  preeminent.  Of  one, 
formerly  the  subject  of  almost  universal  belief,  "/Ae  admirable 
Crichton,"  his  very  existence  is  almost  disproved.  It  is,  at  best, 
most  questionable  even  in  a  comparatively  small  degree.  Of  the 
other,  Pico  della  MiRANDOLA,it  is  now  known  that  his  abilities,  how- 
ever great,  even  if  great  at  all,  were  only  astonishing  for  his  time, 
whereas  those  of  the  reputed  Shakespeare  "are  for  all  time." 
There  have  been  in/ant  prodigies  but  none  of  them  survived 
to  become  great  men. 

"So  wise,  so  young,  did  ne'er  live  long  " 
"Early  Springjs  make  short  Sunnners  " 

If  Shakespeare  was  a  youthful  prodigy,  he  outlived  the 
ordinary  length  of  his  generation,  a  period  of  defective  hygiene 
and  of  little  medical  science.  Nevertheless  he  lived  to  be  52  and 
died  of  one  of  those  "wEi-comba/s  which  his  admirers  have  kindly 
transmuted  into  "  wir-to/wAa/s."  Magliabecchi  and  Mezzokanti 
were  what  men  esteem  miracles  of  knowledge  but  they  were 
only  such  in  particular  lines  and  both  of  them  had  passed  the 
7vho/e  term  of  Shakespeares  life  before  their  knowledge  was 
developed  seriatim — i.  e.,  according  to  the  laws  which  govern 
such  development  as  theirs.  In  fact  they  were  examples  of  the 
absolute  proof  that  "  There  is  so  Royal  Road  to  Learning.'' 
because  their  increment  in  knowledge  was  gradual  and  they 
acquired   their  strength  progressively — vires  acquirit  eundof 

In  conclusion  to  change  the  line  of  argument;  how  is  it 
possible  for  the  idolaters  of  Shakespeare  to  explain  why  the 
charge  of  ^  ^literary  theft,'*  under  so  many  different  shapes,  can 
be  explained  away  in  face  of  the  fact  that  what  is  claimed  for 
him  as  original  is  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  so  many  authors 
who  wrote  in  English  and  preceded  him.  In  the  works  reputed 
to  belong  to  Shakespeare,  are  Thoughts  almost  actually,  textually, 
taken  from  Chaucer,  Sidney,  Lord  Vere,  notably  the  grave- 
digger's  song  in  "Hamlet" — Beaumont  and  Fletcher, — the 
witches'  incantation  in  Macbeth,  Montaigne,  Bacon,  Marlowe  ; 
also  a  number  of  others  which  are  all  mentioned  and  proved  by 
critical  investigation.  To  fanatic  admirers  it  would  perhaps  be 
utterly  useless  to  accumulate  the  direct  and  circumstantial  evi- 
idence  of  facts  and  of  common  sense,  for  it  is  not  likely  they 
would  listen  even  if  one  arose  from  the  dead  to  testify  against 

*  Read  carefully  ||  "The  Shakespearean  Myth"  ||  "William  Shakes- 
peare II  and  circumstantial  Evidence"  II  By  Appleton  Morgan,  A.M.  LL.B. 
II  Cincinnati  ||  Robert  Clarke  &  Co.,  1881,  ||  also  "The  ||  Authorship  of 
Shakespeare"  ||  by  Nathaniel  Holmes,  Hurd  &  Houghton,  \\  New  York. 
1886. 


30 

their  idol.  They  would  even  then  attribute  his  testimony  tcf 
"envy,  hatred,  malice  and  all  uncharitableness,"  if  they  did 
not  assign  it  to  the  domain  of  utter  ignorance  or  falsehood. 
These  few  pages  which  might  be  swelled  into  hundreds,  must 
draw  to  a  close  with  almost  a  repetition  of  the  incontrovertible 
axioms  with  which  they  commenced  :  First:  it  would  be  difficult 
to  "exactly  tell"  what  any  writer  actually  penned  whose  works 
have  undergone  so  much  patching,  overhauling,  improvement 
and  glosses  as  those  assigned  to  William  Shakespeare.  Take 
the  original  of  the  most  famous  monologue  "To  bk  or  not  Ta 
BE."  It  was  originally  almost  a  rough  log  which  different  planes 
have  smoothed  and  other  tools  have  subsequently  polished.  In 
this  and  many  other  cases  the  "divine  (sic. )  William"  would  not 
know  the  work  attributed  to  him.  *  How  much  belongs  to 
Socrates,  how  much  to  Plato,  how  much  to  Montaigne  and  how 
much  to  somebody  else  unknown  and  how  much  to  Shakes- 
peare.'' "that  no  feller  can  lind  out."  But  stronger  than  all  such 
reasoning  is  the  opposition  of  the  imputed,  almost  boundless- 
knowledge  of  Shakespeare  and  his  circumstances,  coupled  with 
the  conceded,  inexorable  fact  "There  is  no  Royal  Road  to  learn- 
ing." Again,  when  the  jews  carried  away  by  their  astonishment 
at  the  vast  capacity  and  doctrines  of  the  Divine  Exemplar  they 
asked  the  reasonable  question  "How  knoweth  this  man  letters, 
having  never  learned  .■'"  For  the  real  Shakespeare  to  have  been 
the  suppositious  Shakespeare  would  involve  an  extra  exertion  of 
nature,  and  nature  never  wastes  force,  nor  would  it  perform  a 
miracle,  almost  without  parallel,  simply  in  favor  of  a  play-actor 
or  manager  certainly  among  the  least  valuable  or  beneficial 
constituents  of  this  worlds  economy  or  machinery. 

There  is  an  all  sufficient  answer  and  complete  explanation 
in  regard  to  the  Divine  Exemplar.  The  Teacher  was  Divinity.  Novf 
it  is  hardly  possible  that  the  wildest  enthusiast  for  the  reputation 
of  the  Warwickshire  "Ale  tester's  son,  play-actor  and  manager 
would  dare  to  claim  for  him  (Shakespeare)  the  gift  which  God 
VOUCHSAFED  TO  SoLOMON  or  the  POSITIVE  INSPIRATION  and  undwelUng 
of  Divinity. 

♦Seepage "Shakespeare    and  Montaigne;  il    and  endeavor  to 

explain  the  tendency  of  "Hamlet"  from  allusions  ||  in  contemporary 
works.  II  By  Jacob  Feis,  II  London:  |l  Kegan,  Paul,  Trencii  &  Co.,  Pater- 
noster Square  II  1884. 

Appended  to,  and  constituting  part  of  an  attractive  little  work  "  Shakespeare's 
Insomnia,  and  the  Causes  Thereof,"  bv  Franklin  H.  Head,  Boston  and  New  York, 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1887,  are  a  nutiiber  of  letters  printed  from  copies  furnished  by 
the  British  Museum,  purporting  to  have  been  written  to,  not  by,  Shakespeare.  Without 
questioning  the  authenticity  of  these  but  judging  from  what  the  Shakespearians  style 
'•  inttrnal  evidence"  i.  e.  style,  etc., — the  writer  feels  without  seeing  the  originals — ,  that 
they  were  all  written  by  the'  same  person. 


31 

A  BIOGRArillCAL  SKETCH, 

By  Richard  Grant  Whitk, 

Uh  fanatico  per  la  Dramina  "  ed  il  Genio  di  Shakespeare  cunstitutes  an 
article  on  the  "Divine  (sic.)  William"  in  Johnson's  New  Universal  Cyclo- 
pcedia,  andastlie  Doctor  was  limited  in  space,  liis  work  may  be  considered  a 
concrete  of  all  that  a  "yawaZ/Vt?"  knew  on  the  subject.  To  analize  iiis  life-lonj^ 
studies,  he  commences  by  '*  supposinj^''  the  date  of  Shakespeare's  birth  and 
except  as  to  his  parents'  names,  their  actual  position  in  society  is  to  a  great 
degree  surmise  "Of  Shakespeare's  early  life  until  he  married,  we  ktiont/ 
nothing,^''  White  observes,  adding,  "//  is  probable,'^  as  to  his  education, 
occupation,  his  mode  of  living,  etc.  His  wife  unquestionably  received 
very  little  attention  while  he  lived  and  less  consideration  in  his  will.  After 
Shakespeare  made  his  way  to  London,  "ere  long  we  find  him  engaged  as  an 
actor  and  as  a  playwright!"  This  became  his  profession.  On  the  stage,  he 
made  no  figure,  tilling  "minor  parts"  and  was  rated  no  higher  than  an  actor 
with  "a  position  of  what  is  known  as  'general  utility'."  White  conceded 
tiiat  the  various  comi)anies  of  players  kept  "several  playwrights  in  their 
l)ay,  who,  working  together,  produced  new  plays  and  patched  ujxild  ones;" 
that  there  is  good  reason  for  believing  that  Shakespeare  wrote  "  in  con- 
Junction  with  Marlowe,  Greene,  I'eele  and  others;"  that  Greene  character- 
ized Shakespeare  as  a  "pretentious  plagiarist;"  and  that  the  "divine  (sic.J 
William"  was  "facetious,"  which  White  asserts  meant  "skilful  and  of  a  del- 
icate fancy  and  'of  wt)rship'  "  significant  "of  social  rank  andconsideiation" 
This  is  sheer  assumption  and  reminds  a  close  historical  student  of  the 
various  applications  of  "gloriosus''^  in  connection  with  Kothwell,-  not  the 
evU-genius  but  the  victim  of  .Mary  .Stuart.  According  to  the  enemies  of  the 
great  Earl,  who,  great  tlirough  his  genius  and  graces  was  a  white  crow 
among  the  flock  of  biaek  ones,  the  Scottish  i\oh\\\iy—b/ack  in  every  sense, 
morals  and  mode  of  life— Glorisus  signified  "  vain-glorious  or  boastful;" 
whereas  friends   and  neutrals  applied  it  in   speaking  of   Hothwell,   in  its 


a  fitting  epithet  to  her  heroes."     How  aptly  the  panegyrist  can  cunningly 
wist  a  term:  "  facetious"  a  man  of  worship!  !  ! 

Of  the  assertion  that  Lord  Southampton  gave  Shakespeare  "^^i.ccx), 
quite  equal  to  $30,000  in  this  day  and  country  (the  United  States),  White 
adds  "the  story  is  probable."  //  is  most  improbable.  That  nobleman  wa» 
not  in  circumstances  to  make  such  a  donation,  unless  the  insinuation  of 
Appleton  Morgan  is  accepted;  that  the  "divine  {sic.)  William"  served  his 
patron  in  a  way  which  would  now  be  accepted  as  a  stigma,  namely  for 
services  which  have  made  one  of  the  most  prominent  characters  of  Shakes- 
peare's "wisest  play" — if  his — Trolius  and  Cressida,  known  by  an  epithet 
to  which  the  prototype  feelingly  alludes  in  the  concluding  lines  of  the 
drama.  White  further  on  observes  that  his  prodigy  "produced  his  plays 
only  in  the  way  of  business,"  and  is  honest  enough  to  concede  that  his 
Sonnets  "remain  a  literary  puzzle  to  this  day"  and  "although  inferior  to  the 
plays,  they  are  far  superior  to  the  other  poems,"  and  yet  it  is  asserted, 
that  for  two  of  the  latter,  one  Venus  and  Adonis,  "the  first  heir  of  his  inven- 
tion," Lord  Southampton,  bestowed  upon  him  a  small  fortune.  All  these 
"probabilities"  not  only  do  not  amount  to  possibility  but  indubitably  da 
not  even  approach  the  boundaries  of  fact.  White,  even  amid  his  supreme 
admiration,  his  "blind  worship,"  acknowledges  that  Shakespeare  had  a 
share  only  in  a  number  of  the  dramas  attributed  to  him  and  that  in  almost 
all  the  best  known,  another  mind  or  other  minds  must  share  the  credit,  ex- 
hibiting the  "  the  marks  of  another  hand." 


32 

"Iri  this  [White's]  order  of  production"  [of  the  plays  attributed  to  him 
Shakespeare]  "we  see  evidence  that  although  Shakespeare  was  a  miracle, 
like  the  sun  and  the  stars  in  their  daily  rising  and  setting,  his  mind  devel- 
oped and  his  power  grew  like  that  of  any  ordinary  mortal."  It  has  been 
stated  as  a  fact,  in  the  foregoing  pages,  that  nature  never  wastes  its  forces 
and  would  never  have  performed  a  miracle  to  create  a  "theatrical  factotum" 
at  a  time  when  playactors  were  regarded  as  vagabonds,  tramps.  But, 
conceding  Shakespeare  was  a  miracle  of  intuitive  force,  such  a  gift  would 
not  have  conferred  knowledge  or  science,  the  inevitable  result  of  study 
and  opportunities  which  latter  did  not  then  exist.  It  almost  seems  ridicu- 
lous to  talk  about  the  writings  of  any  man  when  "not  a  line  of  his  has  come 
down  to  us— not  even  a  word,  except  his  own  signature."  Is  it  a  matter  of 
possibility  or  probability  that  if  Shakespeare  wrote  so  well  in  every  sense 
of  the  word  and  such  a  vast  amount,  that  no  manuscript  of  his,  good,  bad 
or  indifferent,  has  been  preserved,  when  the  writings  of  so  many  men  of 
far  lesser  note,  conceding  any  greatness  to  Shakespeare,  should  not  only 
exist  but  abound.  Finally  general  opinion  concurs  in  the  correctness  of 
the  story  that  Shakespeare  lost  his  life  through  a  fever  brought  on  by  one 
of  those  drinking-bouts  or  WET-combats — which  his  blind  worshippers  insist 
were  «//V-combats-- which,  the  wet-combats,  were  so  common  in  his  day 
and  generation. 

It" any  writer  devoid  of  bias  and  free  from  prejudice,  possessed  of 
sufficient  means  and  pleasant  manners  and  with  ample  means  and  proper 
introductions,  with  leisure  and  power  of  investigation  and  analysis,  and 
master  of  a  clear  and  agreeable  style,  would  go  to  England  and  examine 
every  source  of  licit  information  and  authority,  and  then  communicate 
nothing  else  but  facts  to  the  world,  then,  indeed,  those  interested  in  the 
subject,  might  have  something  worthy  the  title  of  a  biography  of  Shakes- 
peare and  a  history  of  his  doings,  sayings  and  compositions.  As  it  is,  the 
actuality  of  the  Shakespearian  story  holds  the  same  proportion  to  legend  or 
tradition,  sentiment  or  gush,  probability  or  possibility,  buncombe  or  high- 
for-Newtonism,  that  FalstafTs  half-penny  worth  of  bread  did  to  the  two  gal- 
lons of  sack,  the  capon  and  sauce,  the  anchovies  and  the  sack,  after  a  sup- 
per, costing  IDS.  lod. — which  led  Prince  Henry  to  exclaim  "Oii  monstrous  I 
but  one  half-penny  worth  of  bread  to  this  intolerable  deal  of  sack"  /.  e. 
sherry  (?)  wine.  The  superstition  which  elevates  Shakespeare  into  a  philo- 
sophical god  is  preposterous. 


Articles  published  in  United  Servict  Magazine  (equal  in  matter  to  lamo.  volumes):  Torstenson  and 
the  Battle  of  Janikau,  July,  1879  '■>  Joshua  and  the  Battle  of  Beth-horon — Did  the  Sun  and  Moon 
stand  still?  February,  1880;  Hannibal,  July,  1880;  Gustavus  Adolphus,  Sept.,  18S0  ;  Cavalry, 
I.,  Sept.,  1880 ;  Cavalry,  II.,  Nov.,  1880 ;  Cavalry,  III.,  Dec,  18S0;  Army  Catastrophes — Desttuc- 
tion  of  Pharaoh  and  his  host  ;  how  accomplished,  &c.,  &c.  February,  1881. — Hannibal's  Army  of 
Italy,  Mar.,  1881  ;  Hannibal's  Last  Campaign,  May,  1881  ;  Infantry,  I.,  June,  1881  ;  Infantry,  II., 
Aug.,  1881  ;  Battle  of  Eutaw  Springs,  1781,  Sept.,  i83i  ;  Siege  of  Yorktown,  1781,  Nov.  1881  ; 
Infantry,  III,  April,  1882;  Waterloo,  July,  1882;  Vindication  of  James  Hepburn,  Earl  of  Both- 
well,  Sept.,  1882,  Oct.,  1882  ;  From  the  Rapidan  to  Appomattox  Court  House,  July,  1883.— Curgoyne's 
Campaign,  July-Oct.,  1777, and  Appendix,  Oct.,  188 -j. — Life  and  Achievementsof  Field-Marshal  Gene- 
ralissimo Suworrow,  November-December,  1883. — Biographical  Sketch  of  Maj.-Gen.  Andrew  Atkinson 
Humphreys,  U.  S.  A.,  March  1884.— Addres.s,  Maj.-Gen.  A.  A.  Humphreys,  before  the  Third  Army 
Corps  Union,  5th  May,  1884.  Character  and  Services  of  Maj.-Gen.  A.  A.  Humphreys,  U.  S.  A., 
Manhattan,  N.  V.,  Monthly  Magazine,  August,  1884. 

Suggestions  which  laid  the  basis  for  the  present  admirable  Paid  Fire  Department  in  the  City  of  New 
York,  in  which,  as  well  as  in  the  Organization  of  the  present  Municipal  Police  of  New  York 
City,  Gen.  de  Peyster  was  a  co-laborer  with  the  Hon.  Jas.  W.  Gerard,  and  G.  W.  Matsell,  for 
which  latter  Dep-irtment  he  caused  to  be  prepared  and  presented  a  Fire  Escape,  a  model  of  sim- 
plicity and  inestimable  utility.  Republished  in  the  AVw  York  Historical  Magaain*.  Supple- 
ment, Vol.  IX.,  1G65.     John  G.  Shea,  Editor  and  Proprietor. 

The  Pearl  of  Pearls,  or  the  "Wild  Brunswicker"  and  his  "Queen  of  Hearts  :"  a  novel,  founded  on 
facts.  J865.— Mary  Stuart :  a  Study.  1883  ;  James  Hepburn,  Earl  of  Bothwell :  a  Vindication, 
1883;  Bothwell  and  Mary  Stuart:  an  Enquiry  and  a  Justification.  1883.— Bothwell,  an  Historical 
Drama,  1884. — The  Life  and  Military  Servces  of  Sir  John  Johnson,  Bart.  1883. — Notices  and  Corre- 
spondence of  Col.  A.  S.  de  Peyster  and  Brig.-Gen.  Sir  John  Johnson,  Bart.,  during  and  after  the 
American  Revolution,  1776,  &c.     1884. 

State  Sovereignty.  1861. — Life  and  Services  of  the  great  Russian  Field-Marshal  Suworrow.  1883. — 
La  Royale,  the  Grand  Hunt  [or  Last  Campaign  ol  the  Army  of  the  Potomac],  Nos.  I.,  II.,  III., 
IV.,  v.,  VI.,  1872  ;  VII.,  1873;  VIII.,  1871.— Battles  of  Fredericksburg,  Chancel lorsville  and  Get- 
tysburg, in  Onward^  a  monthly.  i86)-7o. — And  Gettysburg  and  Williamsport,  in  the  Solditri* 
Friend,  a  weekly,  1870.— Col.  J.  Watts  de  Peyster,  Jr.,  U.  S.  V.,  A  Threnody.  1874.— Sir  John 
Johns6n,  Bart. :  An  Address  delivered  before  the  N.  V.  Historical  Society,  6th  Jan.,  1880,  with 
two  voluminous  Appendices  of  Authorities. 

Centennial  Sketches  of  the  American  Revolution,  which  appeared  in  the  N.  Y.  Timet,  and  especially  in 
the  N.  Y.  Evening  Mail,  and  Mail  »nd  Express.  1776-82. — Decisive  Conflicts  of  the  late  Civil  War 
or  "  Slaveholders'  Rebellion  :"  I.  Shiloh,  Antietam,  Ac,  1867  ;  II.  Murfreesboro  to  Chattanooga,  &c., 
i866 ;  III.  Gettysburg,  1S67  ;  IV.  Nashville,  1875. — Biographical  notices  of  Major-Generals  Philip 
Schuyler — Address  delivered  before  the  N.  Y.  Historical  Society,  ad  Jan.,  1877  ;  Geo.  H.  Thomas, 
Gikewise  two  Addresses  delivered  on  the  .same  subject  before  the  N.  Y.  Historical  Society,  5th  Jan. 
1875,  and  Jan.  1876);  also,  of  Bancroft,  Burnside,  Crawford,  Heintzleman,  Hooker.  Humphreys, 
McAllister,  Mahone,  Meade,  Edwards  Pierrepont,  Pleasanton,  Sickles,  Tremaine,  &c.,  &c. 

The  B.ittlcs  of  Monmouth  and  Capture  of  Stony  Point :  a  series  of  voluminous  and  exhaustive  articles 
published  in  the  Monmouth  Enquirer,  N.  J.,  1879. — Eclaireur  (The),  A  Military  Journal,  Vols. 
II.  and  III.,  edited  1854-5. 

History  of  the  Third  Corps,  Army  of  the  Potomac,  1861-65.  This  title,  although  not  technically,  is  vir- 
tually correct,  for  in  a  series  of  elaborate  articles  in  dailies,  weeklies,  monthlies,  monographs,  ad- 
dresses, &c.,  everything  relating  to  this  Corps,  even  to  smallest  details,  from  1861  to  1865,  was  pre- 
pared with  care,  and  put  in  print.  These  articles  appeared  in  the  Citizen,  and  the  Citizen  and 
Round  Table:  in  Foley's  Volunteer,  and  Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Hal/~Dime  Tales  0/  the  late 
Rebellion:  in  Mayne  Reid's  magazine  Onward:  in  Chaplain  Bourne's  Soldiers'  Friend:  in  "La  Royale 
or  Grand  Hunt  [or  the  Last  Campaign]  0/ the  Army  o/tke  Potomae,  from  Petersburg  to  Appomat- 
tox Court  House,  April  2-j.  1S65,"  illustrated  with  engraved  likenesses  of  several  of  the  prominent 
Generals  belonging  to  the  corps,  and  careful  maps  and  plans  ;  in  the  life  of  Major-General  Philip 
Kearny  ;  in  the  "Third  Corps  at  Gettysburg  ;  General  Sickles  Vindicated"  ♦  ♦  Vol.  I.,  Nos.  xi., 
xii.,  xiii.  The  Volunteer  ;  in  a  Speech  delivered  before  the  Third  Army  Corps  Union,  5th  May, 
187J  profusely  illustrated  with  portraits  of  Generals  who  commanded,  or  belonged  to  that  organiza- 
tion, &c.  These  arranged  and  condensed  would  constitute  a  work  of  five  or  six  volumes  8vo., 
such  as  those  prepared  by  Prof.  John  W.  Draper,  entitled  the  "Civil  War  in  America,"  but  were 
never  given  as  bound  volumes  to  the  public,  because  the  expense  was  so  great  that  the  author, 
who  merely  writes  for  credit  and  amusement,  was  unwilling  to  assume  the  larger  outlay,  in  addition 
to  what  he  had  already  expended  on  the  purchase  of  authorities,  clerk-hire,  printing,  &c.,  &c. 


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THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


2Nov'48||W 
2;Dec'48Rp2 

UBRARfUSK 

WAY  2  9 1957 

REC'D  t.D 

MAY  29  1967 

Ku  10 1962 


LD  21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 


il 


k 


